Until Such A Time
by Kristen Elizabeth
Summary: Pulled eighteen years into the future, Harry must fight to save his present and his past.
1. Whenever, wherever

Disclaimer: Potter and Co. do not belong to me, but to JK Rowling who is the real brains behind the operation.   
  
Author's Notes: Okay, so this story has absolutely nothing to do with my previous HP story "An Organ of Fire." Although may I just say, the response to the end of that story overwhelmed me. Seriously. I almost cried. But this story is something entirely new that I'm trying and if it gets even a tenth of the response that "Organ..." did, I will be a happy little writer. Enjoy!!  
  
Dedication: To one of the world's newest members, Alison Loyce.   
  
****  
  
Until Such A Time  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
****  
  
"Hermione?" Harry Potter closed the front door behind him and pulled at the hook and eye holding his winter cloak closed at the base of his neck. "Where are you?"   
  
"I'm in the kitchen," his wife of just one blissful year called out, her voice muffled by the space between them. The house they had just bought on the outskirts of London was just big enough to make communication from room to room difficult.   
  
He hung his cloak on the stand next to the door and picked up the post from the hall table. Thumbing through it, he headed for the kitchen. At twenty-four years old, Harry had grown into his knobby knees and unruly hair and turned into quite a handsome wizard. At least, that's what Hermione told him; he didn't set much stock in such things. His eyes, still a brilliant green, also still held the pain of a lifetime spent fighting to survive, the culmination of that being a hot summer night six years earlier.   
  
"Was this all the post that came today?" Harry asked as he entered the little kitchen. He glanced up from the letters in his hands. "Hermione?"   
  
She was standing in front of the stove, using her wand to create a tomato sauce for spaghetti; when he entered, she turned and gave him a warm smile. "Hello to you, too."   
  
The post forgotten, Harry walked up to his wife and lifted her chin for a slow kiss. "I'm sorry," he said a moment later. "How are you, love?"  
  
"Bored," she replied, frowning. "And I can't seem to get enough oregano into this."   
  
He dropped a hand down to her hugely rounded stomach. "Why don't you remind your mother, baby, that there's a jar of oregano in the cabinet just above her head. All she has to do is reach up and grab it."   
  
"Don't tease." With a spoon in one hand and her wand in the other, Hermione propped her fists up on her hips. "I've got to do some magic, Harry, or else I really will go stir-crazy."   
  
"They call it 'maternity leave' for a reason, you know," Harry said, taking the spoon from her and scooping up some sauce. "You're supposed to *leave* the stress of working behind at the office." After taking a taste, he shook his head. "It doesn't need oregano. It needs...basil."   
  
Hermione sighed as she snatched back the wooden instrument. "Who's cooking here, you or me?" To show him she wasn't mad, she kissed his cheek. "Was there something you were expecting in the post?"   
  
"A letter. From Remus." He lifted a shoulder. "It might come tomorrow."   
  
"I'm sure it will," she said softly. Clearing her throat, she pointed her wand at the sauce. Without any fanfare, basil leaves shot into the thick mixture. "Is Ron still coming for dinner?"   
  
Harry nodded. "And he's bringing a date."   
  
"Please tell me it's not that half-wit secretary...what was her name?"  
  
"Lucy," Harry supplied. "No. It's someone we've not met. He said she was foreign, but that's all I could get out of him."   
  
Hermione stirred the sauce thoughtfully. "American, probably. Ron has a thing for blondes with blue eyes."  
  
"And red lips. Red, white and blue." Her husband snickered. "I guess we'll find out."   
  
"I should change then." She looked down at her loose, maternity robes which covered the mound of eight months pregnancy in her body. "I've been wearing this all day."   
  
Harry reached for the spoon again. "You look fine. But I'll finish up in here, if you want."   
  
"My hero." After another, longer kiss, she started off. "Make enough noodles for six or seven. You know Ron's appetite."   
  
"I'll make it eight servings," Harry called out. "You're eating for two, remember!"  
  
She was halfway out the kitchen door before she turned and gave him a pointed look. "Like I could forget." Her hands rubbed her belly. "It's been a party in here for the past hour and a half. In fact, it only stopped when you came in."   
  
"Daddy's girl," he said, confidently.   
  
Hermione pursed her lips. "Perhaps." She pointed to the pot. "Watch out; it's bubbling." She spoke too late; a bubble popped in the middle of the sauce and sent a spray up onto Harry's glasses. "Looks as though you'll be cleaning up for dinner, too, Mr. Potter."   
  
"I'll join you in the bedroom, Mrs. Potter," he grimaced, taking off his splattered glasses.   
  
"In my condition? Harry..." She winked at him. "I'm flattered."   
  
He had to laugh as he used a corner of his shirt to clean the lenses. "How long before Ron and his Yankee show up?"  
  
"Not long enough," Hermione said, almost ruefully. "Besides, I suppose you've forgotten that as of yesterday, you're cut off, love." Blowing him a kiss, she left the room.  
  
Inwardly, Harry groaned. He had forgotten. Putting his glasses back on, he sighed the sigh of a man who would not be getting any action in bed for the next two months, at least. "I guess I'll start on the noodles. That should be just as much fun."   
  
****  
  
"Well? What do you think of her, mate?"   
  
Harry peered over the rim of his tea cup. The woman in question was sitting across the parlor, talking to Hermione by the fireplace. "I suppose the real question is what do *you* think of her?"  
  
Ron Weasley combed his hair through his rusty bangs. "Come on, Harry. I brought her here for approval. I can't go off seriously dating someone without seeing what the two of you think first!"   
  
"Well..." He took a long sip as he devised an answer. "She speaks very good English."   
  
"She didn't a couple of months ago when she first got here from Spain," Ron said. "But...with the help of an excellent tutor..." He grinned. "...she's made tremendous progress."   
  
Harry arched an eyebrow. "Is that how she learned to say, 'oh, yes, give me more' so well? I thought she just really liked spaghetti."   
  
"Serafina," Ron ignored him. "Isn't it a beautiful name? So heavenly..."   
  
"And it goes so well with 'Weasley.'"  
  
Frowning, Ron looked at his oldest friend. "I hope something is bothering you, because if not, you're well on your way to acting like a bloody..."  
  
Harry held up his hand. "Sorry. I'm sorry. It's just..." He put down his cup to rub his eyes. "One of us isn't going to be having sex for the next two months and you know it's not you."   
  
"Damn straight." Ron hid a chuckle behind his hand. "She's having a baby, mate. You had your fun already."   
  
"It's not just that." He considered and continued, "Well, that's a lot of it. But more than that...I haven't heard from Remus in awhile."   
  
Suddenly serious, Ron leaned forward, speaking in a low whisper. "You don't think something has happened to him, do you?"   
  
"I don't know. I don't think so," Harry replied. "But I get worried. He's the last link I have to..." He stopped.   
  
"You've got to stop thinking like there's danger lurking 'round every corner, Harry." His best friend, and for the last two years, his fellow Auror, put a hand on his shoulder. "It's all over. We made the world a safer place."   
  
The Boy-Who-Lived shook his head. "I don't know that it ever will be over, Ron. Not as long...as I keep missing them."   
  
"We all lost people." Ron swallowed heavily. "Don't you think I miss my sister every single day?"   
  
"I know. But Sirius...and Dumbledore..." Harry picked up his cup, only to discover that he had already drained it. "I still feel lost without them."   
  
"Past's in the past, Harry," his friend said sagely. "And the future..." He gestured to Hermione in her rocking chair; she was letting Ron's Spanish flame touch her stomach, laughing at the girl's surprise when the baby moved. "...it's sitting right over there."   
  
Harry blinked when Hermione looked over and caught him staring at her. Her face glowed, and it wasn't just the warm light from the fireplace. She smiled at him, a private little look that spoke volumes of love. Ron was right. Voldemort was dead and buried. He had taken too many people down with him, but he was gone.   
  
The road ahead was clear for him, his wife and their unborn child.   
  
****  
  
Despite this certainty, Harry still found himself standing outside the shell of a burned-out mansion a week later, utilizing a simple locating spell to search the charred ruins for anything pertaining to the Dark Arts. This was a routine part of his job; although the black days of Voldemort's return were long over, the followers he had acquired during those short three years, not to mention the ones he'd had before, were still scattered across England. It was Harry's job as an Auror to track them down, neutralize any threat they posed, and dispose of any dangerous items they might possess.   
  
"Harry." Ron approached him from behind, his work robes flapping in the strong, cold breeze. "This house is clean. What are we still doing here?"  
  
With his wand pointed at the remains of the house, Harry closed his eyes and chanted the simple phrase. A moment later, a floating ball of blue light appeared in front of them. He opened his eyes. "I just need to be sure, Ron. The Torkinson's both have the Mark...and I have a feeling that something of theirs survived the fire."   
  
"Bloody fools, if you ask me. Torching the place just as we closed in. They could've just Apparated out and..." He coughed. "Made it a hell of a lot more difficult for us. So, what do you think is..."  
  
"It's moving," Harry cut him off as the blue light began floating towards the ruins. "Come on."   
  
The two Aurors set off, making their way through the burnt rubble carefully, but quickly as not to lose sight of their guide. They followed the light into the center of the house, but it disappeared through a crack between blackened boards that lay across the floor.   
  
"Damn! Lost it." Ron looked around. "This place doesn't look too sound, Harry. I think we should cut our losses and get out of..."  
  
Harry was already on his knees, pulling the boards away. "Give me hand, would you?"   
  
With much reluctance, Ron kneeled next to his friend to help. "If I ruin my robes, you're buying me new ones."   
  
"I'll be sure to get them with...extra lace." Harry overturned a board with great effort.   
  
"You can't forget anything, can you, Potter?" Ron said with a broad smile that faded the next second. "Harry...where did the floor go?"  
  
Harry threw the last big piece of ceiling aside, revealing a hole and the first few stone steps that led into the impenetrable darkness of the mansion's cellar. "Are you coming?"  
  
"Do I have a choice?" Taking a breath, Ron followed his friend down the ominous stairs. With Harry's Lumos, there was only enough light to see the next step below them. "What are you expecting to find?"  
  
"What do we usually find? A few books, maybe poisonous candles or shrunken heads. Probably nothing more than that." They reached the bottom of the staircase. There was the faintest hint of a blue glow a good distance away. "It's stopped moving, I think. Must have found something."  
  
Harry and Ron walked towards the light, nearly tripping over several empty crates in the process. The fire had not extended to this basement, probably because of its stone structure and the Muggle fire department who had put out the flames in a swift and orderly manner...while the Ministry worked to arrest the mansion's owners right underneath their noses.   
  
"There." Ron pointed to the light. "Can you see what it's touching?"   
  
"Some sort of..." Harry held his wand's light closer to the item that conjured guide had settled over. It sat on a low table, the only structure around as far as he could see. "...shrunken head."   
  
Ron rolled his eyes. "What fun. Who wouldn't want to be into the Dark Arts if it means you get such terrific toys?"   
  
"Ten years ago...I would have thought this was amazingly wicked. You would have, too."   
  
"Yeah, but that was before I had a clue," Ron retorted. "This should be fairly easy to take care of, Harry."   
  
Harry nodded and raised his wand. Before he could utter the spell to destroy the object, something compelled him to stop. He lowered his arm.   
  
"What's wrong? Blast it," Ron urged him.   
  
He licked his lips. "There's just...I don't know." Harry reached for the fist-sized head. "Something about..." His fingers closed around the object; a wave of dizziness engulfed him. He closed his eyes, shaking his head. "Woah. What the hell was that?" There was no reply. "Ron?"   
  
Harry opened his eyes. The basement and his best friend had vanished. He was now back outside, standing in the exact spot he had started out. However, the Torkinson's mansion, or what was left of it, was gone. A huge track of empty moor spread out around him.   
  
"Ron?" he called out. Cold fear dripped into his stomach, settling in a hard ball at the very bottom. He tried swallowing, but his mouth was dry. Something was very, very wrong. "Ron...where are you?!"   
  
"Harry? Harry Potter?"   
  
The voice that called out his name did not belong to his best friend. In fact, it didn't even belong to a man at all. Harry steeled himself and turned around. A girl in her late teens stood several yards away, staring at him. "Who are you? What's happened to Ron?"  
  
"It worked. It really worked!" The girl withdrew her hands from the pockets of her long, black coat and clapped them together, excitedly. "You're here!"   
  
Fear turned into anger. "Who the hell are you? I demand to know what's going on! What worked? Where's Ron?!"  
  
"I'm sorry! I know this has got to be crazy for you! But you're just going to have to trust me, all right?" Taking a deep breath, the girl moved towards him. It was only as she grew closer that Harry got a good look at her. Rich brown hair framed a delicate, heart-shaped face. Her eyes, a hazel that walked the line between brown and green. "Don't you recognize me?"  
  
Harry plunged his hands into black locks "Whoever you are, I need you to tell me what has happened here. Now!"  
  
"Of course you don't recognize me! Why should you? You haven't actually met me yet, have you?" The girl stopped in front of Harry. "This is the part where you're going to have to trust me."   
  
"Trust you? Trust you about..."  
  
She cut him off. "If my calculations are correct, you are exactly eighteen years into the future. Give or take a few minutes." Holding out her hand, the girl looked him straight in the eye. "My name is Emmaline Lily Potter. Emma, for short." There was a pause. "I'm your daughter."   
  
****  
  
To Be Continued 


	2. Come to my window

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my little yarn about them.  
  
Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who responded to the first part;) Good feedback was given and I'm ready to tell more of this story, even if only to prove that it's original and not some generic time-travel story. Ever notice how one bad review counts more than ten good ones? Anyways, if you're reading, enjoy!!  
  
****  
  
Until Such A Time  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
****  
  
Harry had long since ceased to be amazed by anything that the power of magic could accomplish. He had seen so much, and only a little over half of his life had been spent in the Wizarding world. Even time travel wasn't a new thing; modern Time-Turners could take a person back as far as three or four days.   
  
But eighteen years into the future...it was impossible to get his mind around the idea. He blinked several times, staring at the girl who claimed to be his daughter with an unbelieving eye. "Are you mad?" he finally asked her.   
  
"Only a little," she replied, folding her slender arms. "Mum says I get it from you."   
  
"Hermione?" Harry shook his head. "All right. Before we go any further, you start talking. I want the whole story."  
  
Emma, if that was really her name, lifted her chin several notches. "It sounds like you need more proof. What do you want me to tell you? Your name is Harry James Potter. You were born on July 31st to Lily and James Potter in..."  
  
"Sadly, any five-year-old child could tell you that," Harry muttered.   
  
"All right." She unfolded her arms to gather her hair at the base of her neck as she thought. "Um...Mum told me that when you found out she was pregnant with me, you ran into a wall."   
  
He blinked. "What?"  
  
"A wall. The...er...hallway wall, I think she said. She was afraid you had given yourself a concussion, but she was more afraid that you had passed out because you were upset about the news."  
  
His fingers pressed against his forehead, the exact spot where a nasty bump had appeared only six months earlier when Hermione had blurted that she was pregnant, causing him to forget to turn the hall corner in time and sending him slamming into it, full force. "You can't...possibly know that. I didn't even tell Ron..."   
  
"Ron." He wasn't sure, but it almost seemed like her lip curled up in disgust. "Well, anyway...do you need anymore proof?"  
  
"I want explanations." Harry lowered his hand. "If you're really my daughter...you know me enough to know that I like to know what's going on."  
  
Emma cleared her throat delicately. "That's just it. I don't know you at all."   
  
"What does that mean?"  
  
"Look...there really isn't any easy way to say this." The girl hesitated for a second. "You have to understand, first of all, that I would never do this to you if it weren't absolutely necessary. This isn't some whim I had. I didn't go through all of this trouble for selfish reasons." She took another, calming breath. "The reason I don't know you is because...a week before I was born...." A second passed. "...you died."   
  
A cold gust of wind hit them, making their hair dance around their faces. Harry expelled a breath slowly. "Whoever you are, you really are mad. Now, I want you to undo whatever it is that you've done and send me back to where I started out. Immediately."   
  
"I can't do that." Emma took a step towards him. "I need your help. The thing is, I don't think you were supposed to die when you did. Something got messed up and you went before your time. And now the entire world has gone to hell and as far as I could see, the only way to make it right was to bring you here. To fix it." She nibbled on her lower lip. "So...what do you say?"   
  
Harry dragged a hand down his face. "If this is really true...how did I die?"   
  
"You know, there are probably a few things I shouldn't..."  
  
"Tell me how I'm supposed to have died."  
  
Emma let a few moments slip by before she replied, "Voldemort...rose again. Unexpectedly. You died facing him. Mum and I were spared...under the Fidelus Charm. We've been hiding all my life." Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. "You have no idea how hard it's been. I didn't get to go to Hogwarts, not that I would have been asked. You can't get in there these days unless you can trace your Wizard blood back at least three generations. Purebloods only."   
  
"Voldemort..." Harry whispered. "No. We defeated him." His voice rose. "Don't stand there and tell me that everything we did was for nothing! That everyone who gave up their lives did so in vain!" He shook his hands wildly. "Okay, this has gone way too far. Granted that I believe any of this, and don't think that I do just yet, what about everyone else?"  
  
She frowned. "Everyone else?"  
  
"Yes! Lupin...Hagrid...um...Ron? Hermione herself! Our friends...the other Aurors. I am one person out of hundreds who could stand up against Voldemort. I refuse to believe that my death brought about some kind of apocalypse."   
  
"Mum's always told me that you were humble. But I had no idea." Emma shook her head. "Your death...it paralyzed the world. He took over within a matter of weeks."   
  
"There are other people," Harry continued. "Ron, for one. After what happened to Ginny, he'd die himself before..." He stopped. "Oh god...please don't tell me that he's..."  
  
Emma's reply was curt. "He's alive. Unfortunately."   
  
"What?"  
  
"Look, there will be time for better explanations later. Right now...it's getting late and I don't want to worry Mum." She glanced at her watch. "It might make it easier for you to believe everything if you see it with your own eyes."  
  
Harry blinked several times. "If this is all true and I'm dead, how are you going to explain my sudden...appearance?"  
  
"I'm not." She reached into her coat and pulled out a compact, paper-wrapped bundle, secured with heavy twine. After ripping into, Emma withdrew a very familiar, silvery cloak. "I believe this belongs to you."   
  
"My Invisibility Cloak?"   
  
She nodded. "I found in the attic one day. Mum doesn't know that I know about it. The Charm keeps us hidden even when we go outside, but this has come in handy for me more than once." She tossed it to Harry and he caught it. "It's dusty, but it still works. Put it on. And come home with me."   
  
"What is Hermione going to say?" he asked, fingering the cloak's collar.   
  
"Nothing. She won't see you either." Emma waved her hands in a similar gesture to Harry's of a few minutes earlier. "I promise, I will tell you absolutely everything later tonight. We have to hurry now; the sun's fixing to set."   
  
Harry swallowed. "I don't want to believe any of this."   
  
"I wish you didn't have to," she said softly. "Please, Dad. Just...put it on."   
  
His head spun, but there really wasn't anything for him to do about it at that moment. She promised answers to all of his questions later; he would just have to be patient until then. Also, he would need her to get back to his world...his time...wherever. The place where he had been. He had no idea if he had simply disappeared without a trace, or worse. Or maybe nothing had happened at all and this was simply a dream or hallucination.   
  
Whatever was going on, the girl leading him down the hill held all the cards and he had none. He reluctantly pulled the cloak up over his head. It smelled like moth balls. Harry sighed; he had the sudden thought that things were going to get a lot worse before they got better.  
  
****  
  
The Apparated into Emma's bedroom minutes later. Harry immediately recognized it as the nursery he and Hermione had spent hours preparing for their child. Of course, the crib and changing stand had been replaced by a double bed and dressing table, but the pink-trimmed walls were the same.   
  
"This isn't real," he said out loud.   
  
"Shh!" Emma pointed in his general direction; with the cloak over his head, she couldn't locate him exactly. "I hear footsteps."   
  
"Emma?"  
  
She coughed. "I'm in here, Mum!"  
  
Harry froze. It was Hermione's voice, without a doubt. As the doorknob turned, he braced himself for what was to come. The door opened, but he was unprepared for the person who stepped inside.   
  
"Emma...have you been here all this time? I haven't heard a peep out of you."   
  
His heart was suddenly too heavy for his chest. The Hermione who stood in the doorway looked absolutely nothing like the woman he had kissed goodbye in bed that very morning. If not for the book in her hand and her general features, he might have mistaken her for someone else entirely. She looked, in a word, old.   
  
But it wasn't age that made her so; if the girl beside him was correct, Hermione was only forty-two. Years hadn't taken their toll on her...life had. There were dark circles underneath her eyes, the sign of sleepless nights spent crying. Her hair hung limply around her shoulders. She looked to be about thirty pounds underweight; her clothes hung on her body.   
  
It was all Harry could do to stay still under the cloak.  
  
"I've been studying," Emma smoothly lied. "I got completely caught up in...um...troll history."   
  
Hermione gave her a look, a look he was entirely familiar with, having seen it on numerous occasions back at Hogwarts, when she caught him slacking off during study time. "Good. Then you can tell me all about them over dinner."   
  
The girl fidgeted. "Er...okay. I'll be down in a minute. Just have to...wash up."   
  
"Of course. Because all that page-turning is sweaty business. Especially if you're wearing that heavy winter coat around inside." Hermione left, but not without a parting look.   
  
Harry released a breath when the door closed and pulled off the cloak. "Now would be the time to start explaining things."   
  
"After dinner, I will. I promise!"   
  
"She looks...she doesn't look like my Hermione. She looks like..." Harry balled up the cloak in his fists. "What's happened to her?"  
  
Emma peeled off her black coat. "She lost you. She lost her friends, her job, her place in the community. She's been forced into hiding for eighteen years. And she's raised me, single-handedly and taught me everything I know about anything." She started for the door. "Listen. I know I'm asking a lot of you, but if you'll just give me until after dinner....I'll tell you everything. And I'll bring you a plate, I promise."   
  
"I can't even...believe any of this is happening. I should be at home, with *my* Hermione, not in this...alternate freak world." He threw the cloak onto the bed in frustration.  
  
"It's not a freak world," she replied, quietly. "It's the world without you. But you're back now. And I know you can make it better!"   
  
Harry shook his head. "You're counting on me way too much. What we should do is find Ron and..."  
  
"No!" Emma's eyes narrowed. "That is totally *not* an option." Down the hall, Hermione called for her daughter. "Damn! I have to go. Stay here, please. I promise...everything will be explained." She backed out of the door, her hands clasped in front of her, prayer-style. "Please...please...keep the cloak on. Just in case." The door was halfway closed before she stuck her head back in. "And don't get any ideas about looking for Ron. I didn't bring you here just to destroy everything that's left." With that, she slammed the door shut. He could hear her footsteps retreating down the hall.   
  
Harry sat on the frilly, lace edge of Emma's bed. There was nothing else to do.   
  
Twenty minutes later, he stood up, pulled the cloak back over his head and opened the door. Harry Potter was not famous for sitting on his hands when his life spun out of control. Knowing every inch of the house, he snuck down the hall, towards the dining room. Eavesdropping was all right, he figured, if you had been sucked into the future without explanation by your supposed flesh and blood.   
  
He heard Hermione speaking first. "Look, I know that I can't expect you to stay cooped up inside for your entire life...and I understand that the new charm gives you a way to escape every now and then...but it's a not a privilege I want you to abuse." A fork clanged against a plate. "There are hundreds of people out there who would give up their very lives in order to hand us over to Voldemort. Can you understand how terrified I get when I know you're out and about?"  
  
"I'm sorry, Mum," Emma replied just as Harry peeked into the room. She was seated across from Hermione, picking at a plate of stew. "I just needed some air."   
  
Hermione shook her head. Her eyes shimmered with tears that Harry immediately wanted to soothe away. "This isn't the life he wanted for you. He wanted you to have everything; we both did." She sniffed. "Just please...in the future, let me know when you're going out and we'll go together."   
  
Emma nodded. A moment passed as they both ate silently. "Mum," she began. "Did Dad..."  
  
"Emma, love." Hermione reached for her daughter's hand. "It's been a very long day. Can we talk about...your father another time? Please?"   
  
Reluctantly, the girl nodded. "Yeah. Another time." She sighed. "It's never a good time, is it?"  
  
Tossing down her fork, Hermione buried her face in her hands for a second. "Please, Emma? Today is just..." She stopped. "Did you go into the city while you were out?"  
  
"Er...just...not for long."  
  
"I smelled his cologne upstairs," Hermione continued, wistfully. "I suppose it could be my imagination...but it was so real. I thought maybe you might have...been around someone who wears it now."   
  
Emma raised an awkward shoulder. "I guess I could have. I don't really know what Dad smelled like."   
  
"He always smelled..." She closed her eyes, remembering. "...like plain, clean soap. And when he'd come home from the Ministry, after being around...well, around other men...he'd smell like sandalwood and tobacco. But on special occasions or even on ordinary days when he was in the mood...he'd wear cologne. I don't remember the name of it. Just the scent."   
  
"See, Mum?" Emma's voice was soft and slightly hoarse. "It's not so hard to talk about him, is it?"  
  
He couldn't hear any more. It was too hard. His heart no longer felt heavy; it felt like he might not even have one anymore. Her anguish had shredded it to pieces. As he walked for the door, he pinched himself, willing his body to wake up from the nightmare. But it wouldn't go away. The house that had been stripped of all the pictures of them together at school, at their wedding...he was still stuck in it when the slight pain faded.   
  
Harry still had enough presence of mind to carefully open the front door and close it behind him without a sound. The wind had picked up outside; he had to fight to keep all of his body covered by the cloak. And, he found out, it provided absolutely no warmth.   
  
He started down the street; one of the reasons he and Hermione had chosen this little suburb to live in was that it retained an old-world charm that you just couldn't find in the heart of London. People knew each others names and it wasn't because the town was mostly made up of wizarding families. Even the few Muggles were aware of the magical world.   
  
But now, the houses on either side of the street were, for the most part, boarded up. Empty shells, some even burned. No children played in the street, no cars sat in driveways, no one was outside grilling steaks or discussing the latest Chudley Cannons game over the fence with their neighbor.   
  
Harry swallowed. If this truly was the world that his death had created, what could he possibly do now to undo so much damage?   
  
He heard voices suddenly and almost stepped behind a tree before he remembered his invisibility underneath the cloak. Instead of hiding, he turned around to locate the source of the voices. With the sun almost completely set, it was impossible to make out faces on the shadowed figures that were walking down the street, going the way he had just come. But their conversation was impossible to miss.  
  
"We've searched this street so many times, sir. They're not here...no one's here anymore."  
  
"Oh, they're here. They're just hidden. Perhaps today will be our lucky day..."  
  
Harry's entire body froze. The second voice...it was as unmistakable as Hermione's had been. He blinked, not wanting to believe what his ears were telling him. But the figures came closer and in the weak light, the face to match the voice materialized.   
  
Ron walked towards him without seeing him; his robes were blacker than ink and billowed around his feet like a clinging shadow of doom. His hair was the only bit of color he had on; even his eyes, once so brilliant and blue were now dark and so heavily set ahead of him that he wasn't even blinking.   
  
Another man in black robes trailed along beside him. "Sir, it's not a matter of luck. It's..."  
  
"When I want your opinion..." Ron stopped only long enough to grab up his companion by his collar. "...I'll let you know what it is. For now...keep looking."   
  
The man straightened his robes after Ron had released him and continued walking. "He's not going to be pleased that we're wasting our time here again."   
  
A rush of air colder than the wind swept over Harry as Ron passed by him, missing his arm by a matter of inches. "On the off-chance that today might be the day they let their guard down and we find them...I'll risk it."   
  
Harry followed them as quietly as possible, despite suddenly having trouble breathing. What had happened to Hermione was bad; what appeared to be wrong with Ron...was a thousand times worse.   
  
Finally, Ron and his companion stopped exactly where Harry feared they would. The very house he had just left. To his eyes, it looked completely normal. Smoke rose from the chimney, there were lights on in almost every room.   
  
But to the two men, "Nothing, sir. As usual. Just a boarded-up waste of space." The unidentified man kicked the side of the house. "It's not even fit for rats to live in."  
  
"Who's keeping your Secret, Hermione?" Ron whispered, peering into one window. "When I find out..." He chuckled. "Oh...when I find out..." He stepped away from the house. "Let's report back. Lord Voldemort is waiting for us."   
  
Harry stood completely still, unable to move even if he had wanted to, until Ron and the man Disapparated. When they had vanished, he sat down on the ground, ignoring the cold grass.   
  
He was dead. Hermione was wasting away. His child lived her life in hiding. And Ron...his best friend...had gone to the other side.   
  
Unable to stop himself, he crawled out from under the cloak and lost the contents of his stomach into a clump of nearby bushes.   
  
****  
  
To Be Continued 


	3. I'll take you there

Disclaimer: The usual stuff about characters not belonging to me. Old, but necessary.   
  
Author's Notes: I know not as many people are into this story as "Organ", but it's all good. I'm having fun telling it and I hope if you're reading, you're having fun doing so as well. Take care, and thank you for the reviews thus far!  
  
****  
  
Until Such A Time  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
****  
  
"All right." With her foot, Emma pushed the door to her room open. Both of her hands were occupied carrying a bowl, a plate, napkins and utensils and a glass in the crook of her arm. She shut the door the same way and smiled at Harry. "It's beef stew and homemade bread. Mum's not the greatest cook in the world, but she..."  
  
He lifted his stony gaze from the spot on the floor on which it had been fixed since he arrived back in his daughter's room. "Tell me about Ron."   
  
She paused as she set the bowl onto her dressing table. "Do you want salt? I can run downstairs and grab the cellar if you..."  
  
"You promised me answers. Here's my question." Harry stood up and approached the girl. "What's happened to Ron?"  
  
Emma busied herself arranging her father's dinner dishes as she spoke. "He's not one of us anymore."  
  
"What does that mean?" Harry pressed. He needed to hear her say the words.   
  
"He's..." She spun around, his fork still in her hand. "He's a Death-Eater, Dad." After a moment of watching closely for his reaction, she continued, "That wasn't how I wanted to tell you. And you probably don't believe me anyways. So...you'll probably want the whole story."   
  
Harry gave her a cool look and took the fork from her. Despite everything that was happening, his stomach still called for attention. "You talk." He sat at the dressing table. "I'll eat."   
  
"You're taking this rather well," Emma commented, puzzled.   
  
"Let's just say..." He swallowed a mouthful of stew. "I saw something I shouldn't have." Harry took another bite. "Tell me how it came about. Imperius Curse? Brainwashing?"   
  
Emma hesitated. "None of the above." She sat on her bed and crossed her legs Indian-style. "He went over of his own free will."   
  
"I don't believe that," Harry replied simply. "Not Ron."   
  
"Yeah, well....it's a fucked up world." Her words were harsh. "I've never actually met him...but I've seen his face pressed against our window more than once. You have to understand..." She ran a hand through her hair. "It all happened so fast. Your death, my birth, and before Mum had even been released from the hospital, he was gone. His first assignment under Voldemort was to deal with us. That's when we went into hiding." Emma took a breath. "So...he's been trying to get us for eighteen years. I think even Voldemort might have lost interest, but not Ron. It's some sort of...personal mission of his. Now do you see why there's dark circles under Mum's eyes?"  
  
Harry set down his fork and took a long sip of water. He had to keep performing these little actions in order to keep from shutting down entirely. Every instinct told him that the girl was wrong or lying...but he had seen for himself, quite plainly, that her story was true.   
  
Swallowing, he tore off a piece of bread from the hunk she had brought him. "Is that everything I need to know?"   
  
"What else do you *want* to know?"  
  
He bit into the bread. "For starters...are all of my friends working for Voldemort now? Isn't there anyone trying to fight back? Or are they all dead?"   
  
Emma pulled her knees up and tucked them under her chin. "There's a small resistence. How do you think Mum and I survive? Our Secret-Keeper is one of them...but I don't know who it is. Mum says it's safer that way." She scowled. "I really ought to know. I'm not a child anymore!"  
  
"I'm sure she's just...just trying to protect you." The bread was like a lump of dust in his mouth. He could only choke it down with the help of a sip of water. "Who's in the resistence?"  
  
"People..." she hesitated. "I was going to take you to them tomorrow."   
  
Harry choked. "Do they know about your little...whatever it was you did to bring me here? What was it, anyway? Seems like pretty advanced magic for someone who's never had formal training."   
  
"It's actually something I stumbled upon. A theory in one of Mum's books that was never proven." Harry waited for her to go on. "Basically, a spell that could send an enchanted item back in time to bring..." She gave him her mother's dazzling smile. "The details aren't important; what matters is that it worked."  
  
"I'd say the details are *very* important. When it comes time to send me back to my world, I expect them to be very important to you, too." He let the matter slide for the time being as he finished eating. "The only thing I still don't understand is what you expect me to do to change this world. It seems like anything I could do would only be a scratch on the surface."   
  
Emma fidgeted. "Well, that's why I'm taking you to the underground tomorrow. They'll know what to do, much better than I. Although...I didn't exactly do this with their blessings." A sheepish look skitted across her pretty face.   
  
Harry set aside his napkin. "Did you actually think *any* of this through, or did you just go ahead and do it?"  
  
"You know, everything I've ever heard about you says that you have absolutely no right to lecture to me...or anyone...about impetuousness! But to answer your question, yes. I thought it through so much that I almost got sick of thinking about it. All my life, I've wanted..." The girl looked away for a minute. "I think that if you could defeat Voldemort, more people would have the courage to fight back."   
  
"He killed me," Harry replied shortly. "What makes you think it'll be any different if I face him again?"  
  
Emma looked back at him. "Because this time...you'll be prepared. He won't catch you off-guard again." She licked her lips. "That's how it happened. He rose without any forewarning...and you were the first person he came after. He got you..."  
  
He held up a hand, silencing her. "You were right. There are probably some things I shouldn't know." Several minutes ticked by as father and daughter studied each other. Finally, Harry said, "You look so much like your mother."   
  
"I know. Sometimes..." She laughed bitterly. "I used to wish that I had favored you. Then at least I would have known what you looked like. Mum...took down all the pictures of you a long time before I could become interested in them. It hurts....she hurts when she thinks about you." Emma shrugged, but the careless motion was weighed down with emotion. "She's never healed."   
  
"My Hermione..." he whispered. "This is a nightmare."  
  
His daughter tucked her hair behind her ears. "I'm sorry...that I pulled you out of your world. I know it's probably a million times better there." With sharp movements, she jumped off the bed. "You know what? Let's not wait until tomorrow."  
  
"But..."  
  
"There's no point in delaying, right?" Emma crossed her arms tightly across her modest chest. "The sooner we fix this world, the sooner you can get back to yours." She paused for a second. "And away from this...nightmare."   
  
Failing to pick up on the hurt in her words, Harry lifted his head. "Let's get going then."  
  
****  
  
Apparating to a remote loch in the Scottish highlands took only seconds; Harry was more than a little impressed at Emma's ease with the advanced wizard skill. Hermione had taught her...their daughter well. Someone had been looking after the two women, he was also pleased to note. Emma had her own wand from Ollivander's, although she had likely never been so much as allowed to step foot into Diagon Alley. It must have taken a great deal of coordinated effort with an even greater amount of love for his wife and child for someone to make sure that they weren't cut off from the world entirely.   
  
When they materialized on the edge of the deep lake, Emma gestured to the water. "I hope you're good at Bubble-Head charms."  
  
"You mean..." Harry groaned to himself. "They're underwater??"  
  
"Of course not. The entrance to the cave is underwater, that's all." The girl pulled her wand from the inside pocket of her coat. "Ready?"   
  
Fortunately, Harry remembered the charm from a recent raid on a manor house in Wales that had an old-fashioned moat around it. With his own wand, he conjured the charm around his head and when it was in place, hesitantly joined his daughter in the cold lake.   
  
They stood in waist-deep water, shivering for a minute. "Just...follow...me," Emma instructed, her teeth chattering. With that, she let her whole body slip under the glass surface of the loch. Harry took a deep breath, but then, remembered himself. Breathing normally, he ducked his head under the water.   
  
Emma was already several yards away, descending into deeper waters with clean breast-strokes. Harry still wasn't all that great of a swimmer, but he managed to keep a decent pace behind her. There was little light at the depth at which they leveled off and there was still a good hundred feet of water below them. Harry tried not to think about it, tried to keep focused on Emma's feet as they kicked in front of him.   
  
But he couldn't ignore the sudden feeling that they were not alone in the water. This fear was all-too concretely confirmed when he looked down and saw a massive, dark green creature swimming at their pace directly beneath them.   
  
His first instinct was to panic; Harry shot his arm out ahead of him on one of Emma's kicks and grabbed her slender ankle. She stopped swimming and shook off his hand. Turning around, she faced him with a puzzled look. Harry pointed down.   
  
After taking a look, Emma shook her head, releasing a stream of air bubbles from the protective shield around her head, and pointed to the direction they had been heading. Harry squinted; he could just make out the comforting sight of a stone wall. They had reached the caves.   
  
Beneath them, the creature turned around in circles, seemingly contented to tease the humans above. Emma reached for her father's hand and pulled him through the water, kicking for both of them. They reached the dark mouth of the underwater cavern only a minute later. Harry let her pull him into it; he took one look back at the lake. The creature was swimming away, its massive tail swaying behind its girth.   
  
The passage they entered was narrow and it took much concentrated effort to maneuver through it. Harry followed Emma, suddenly grateful to be alive at all, whether that be alive in his own world or this one. Alive. He swallowed. The entire reality of what the future had held in store for him had he stayed in his own time hit him like a shockwave. She had said he died a week before she was born. That meant he only would have had three weeks, give or take, to live.   
  
It was a paralyzing thought.   
  
But he had little time to think about it; in another minute, he and Emma emerged from the passageway. He could see light in the water above. They kicked for it and broke the surface seconds later.   
  
"What the bloody hell was that?" he immediately demanded to know. His voice echoed off the rounded cave ceiling.   
  
Paddling in the water, Emma smothered a laugh. "I'm sorry. I forgot all about Ness."   
  
"Ness?" Harry blinked. "You mean...Nessie? The Loch Monster?"  
  
Emma nodded. "But it's not actually a girl. So, it's Ness. Don't worry...he wouldn't harm anyone. Well, anyone who's welcome here, that is." She glanced around to get her bearings. "Come on." She started a slow free stroke towards the cave wall. Harry sighed and followed her again, through a dug-out hole in the wall just below the water line. They came out into another cave, fifty times larger than the one in which they had just been.   
  
"The Order of the Phoenix," Emma said softly. "Or...what's left of them."   
  
Harry looked around. There was dry land in this cave; along the water's edge there were several clumps of hastily-erected tents. He could see the dancing shadows of fire mixed with the water's reflection on the walls, could smell food being cooked, could hear low voices speaking to each other.   
  
His daughter cleared her throat and moved her body in front of his as to hide him. "When is Bertie Bott going to make a loch-flavored bean?" she asked as loud as possible.   
  
"Hey everyone!" a voice called out. "Look who's come to visit!"   
  
"Emma." Harry recognized the voice immediately. He closed his eyes, hoping it was true and not just wishful thinking on his part. "What the bloody blazes are you doing here, child?"   
  
Emma hesitated as she treaded water. "I...brought a...a surprise. Okay, so there really isn't any good way to do this." She kicked away from Harry.   
  
All too suddenly exposed, Harry focused on the shore. There was only a handful of people gathering along it, but many of them were people he knew well. Hot tears mixed with the lake water on his cheeks. Fred (or George, he couldn't be sure), Percy, and Charlie Weasley. Neville Longbottom. Lavender Brown. Seamus Finnegan. Cho Chang. Hagrid. Remus Lupin.   
  
Gasps. Shocked expressions on instantly pale faces. Tears. Soft cries.   
  
"Harry." Lupin stepped forward, ignoring the fact that he was slowly walking forwards. He put a hand to his mouth; his legs gave out and he dropped to his knees into the shallow water. "Harry," he repeated. "How? This isn't...possible."   
  
There was a tremendous splash as Hagrid dove into the water and waded out. He grabbed Harry up into a bone-crushing hug. "It's not poss'ble...but 'ere he is! 'arry...'arry. We thoug' we lost yer..."   
  
"We did." On the shore, Percy crossed his arms. "Harry is dead. Harry has been dead...for a long time." His eyes narrowed slightly. "This could be a trick. Emma, get out of the water before..."  
  
Fred, it was Fred, Harry decided, slapped his brother on the back much harder than necessary. "Don't scare her like that, you git." But he looked at the water, anxiously. "Emma, love...why don't you just come up here anyways? Just in case?"   
  
Emma shook her head. "No, it's all right. He really is Harry...my father. I promise you it's not an illusion."  
  
"But look at him," Seamus pointed out in his Irish drawl. "He hasn't aged a bit. It can't be Harry."   
  
"It *is* a trick!" Lavender cried out. "Voldemort's outdone himself this time. Sweetie..." She gestured to Emma. "That is not your father. Please, just come to us and we'll take care of everything."  
  
Harry was unable to speak up in his own defense; Hagrid's hug had turned into one of restraint. He looked at Lupin; the older man was in the same position, staring at him with blank eyes. Beside them, Emma began swimming towards the shore. "No, you don't understand." When her feet touched solid ground, she stood up. "It's my father! It's just my father...from the past."   
  
Neville frowned. "What do you mean?"  
  
Emma wrung her hands, avoiding everyone's eyes. "You remember that little time-travel idea I had awhile back?" She smiled as brightly as possible. "Well, guess what? It worked!"   
  
The adults along the shore exchanged looks. "Emma," Cho began patiently. "We explained to you the problems....what could happen. What could go wrong. We were rather firm if I remember correctly."  
  
"Yes, but..."  
  
"You actually did it?" Amazement shone in Charlie Weasley's eyes. Catching the angry glares he received, he coughed. "How could you be so foolish?" he quickly added.  
  
Emma was crestfallen. "But...you all always say, 'if only Harry were still alive.'" She glanced at each of the people who had played such a huge role in her life. One of them, she was one-hundred percent sure, was their Secret-Keeper. "And now he is! He can help us...I mean, you." She took a breath. "I timed it so that I would get him a few weeks before the Rising. He's my father..." Emma bit her trembling lip. "I just wanted to help."   
  
"Of course you did." Lupin stood up, apparently recovered from his initial shock. He waded further into the lake until he was only a few yards away from Hagrid and Harry and still able to stand. "Harry..." He shook his head of shaggy grey hair. "It's like looking at a picture..."   
  
Harry licked his lips. "I can't even imagine what you're all thinking." He paused. "Perhaps I can. This has been...trying for me, too. One minute I was digging through rubble with Ron..." The reactions to the name varied from dark looks to angry embarrassment. "...and then next, I was here." He attempted to chuckle. "Just...dead."   
  
"You're here," Lupin repeated. "I can't believe it." He pushed out into the water, swam over to his best friend's son and grabbed him up. "You're back. Thank god, Harry...you're back."   
  
On the shore, Neville put his arm around Lavender's waist. "You were saying earlier that you wanted things to come to a head, love?" He nodded towards the water. "I think we've got the means now."  
  
****  
  
To Be Continued 


	4. Complicated

Disclaimer: Not mine.  
  
Author's Notes: Thank you for all the feedback! I'm glad to see the story is living up to "Organ..." and that people are enjoying it. I'm going to go ahead and say, I'm totally not a Ron hater, despite my track record. I adore Ron. I'm not going say any more at the moment; I just wanted to lay that out on the table. So...with that, enjoy this relatively short chapter!   
  
****  
  
Until Such A Time  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
****  
  
"Are you hungry, Harry?" Lupin plucked the cast iron lid off a pot situated over the fire he had going just outside the open flap of his tent. "There's plenty here."  
  
Harry shook his head and pulled Hagrid's blanket closer around his wet body. He had stripped down to his pants; the rest of his clothes lay nearby, drying. "We ate at the house."   
  
"The house," Lupin repeated. "So...you've seen Hermione, then?"  
  
"From under the blissful invisibility of my father's cloak." He shook his head. "I think the last thing she needs is the shock of seeing me." Harry looked across the camp to where Cho and Lavender were fussing over Emma and her own soaked clothes. "Fortunately, Emma agreed with me. She's...stubborn. To say the least."   
  
Serving himself a bowl of some sort of soup, Lupin laughed. "I wonder who she could have gotten that from? I'll tell you, Harry..." He took a spoonful. "She might look like Hermione, but she is entirely your child." He lowered his spoon. "Bloody fuck. I can't believe you're sitting across from me! It's like the past eighteen years just didn't happen!"  
  
"*You* can't believe it? Try this on for size. Not only have I been sucked into the future, I've just found out exactly how I was supposed to have died and when and how the world goes to hell after it happens. Happened. I don't even know what tense to use!!" Harry shook off the blanket in frustration. "Remus..." He ran a hand down his face. "I saw Ron."   
  
The man paused for a second. "I'm sorry."   
  
"Why did he do it?"   
  
"Because..." Lupin set his bowl aside. "Man is an inherently weak creature."  
  
"But Ron...Ron wasn't weak," Harry protested.   
  
His old friend lifted his shoulders. "Emma doesn't know the whole story, so whatever you've heard is bound to be incomplete. But I'll tell you the truth, Harry. Although god only knows what effect it might have on the natural timeline."  
  
"I think we're well beyond worrying about that at this point."   
  
Lupin nodded his agreement. "Ron did have one weakness. And if you'll think really hard, I'm sure you can think of what it..."  
  
"Women," Harry cut him off. "He could never, ever say 'no' to a woman."   
  
"And one 'no' to one woman in particular would have been enough to save his soul."   
  
Harry puzzled over this for a minute before his eyes grew wide. "His Spanish fling? We just met her at dinner!"   
  
Lupin pulled at the stubble on his chin. "It's...mad hearing you talk about things as though they happened the other day."  
  
"It *did* just happen the other day. At least, to me." Harry leaned forward on his knees. "Are you saying...that girl was a Death-Eater?"  
  
"From a long line. Voldemort's reach extended far beyond the British Isles. He had followers in Spain, France, Bulgaria, America, Germany...the list goes on. We later found out that the girl was from a long, pure-blooded line, a Dark Arts practitioner *and*..." He shook his head. "...a half-Veela."   
  
"Bloody hell," Harry breathed. "Ron never stood a chance."   
  
Lupin's expression grew dark. "He still had a choice."   
  
"Why is he so hell-bent on capturing Hermione and Emma?"   
  
"I really don't know. Frankly, I don't care either. All I'm concerned about is preventing it." Lupin picked up his dinner again. "Since Hermione won't relocate here where it's safe, it makes things a bit more difficult, but it's certainly worth the effort." He ate a bite. "She refuses to abandon the house...the house that she lived in with you."  
  
Harry let his head hang for a second. "Are you their Secret-Keeper?"  
  
"No." Lupin moved the spoon back and forth through the soup. "It's someone who can be completely trusted, don't worry. It's not going to be another Wormtail."   
  
"Of course I trust you. If all of this had to happen...I'm glad you were here for them. When I couldn't be."   
  
Lupin cleared his throat. "For many years, I wished I could have taken care of you when James and Lily died. I wasn't about to sit around on my hands when your own wife and child needed me."   
  
Several moments passed as Lupin finished eating and Harry glanced around the camp. In total, there were only about forty people in this resistence that he could see and from the looks of things, they had all been living underground for quite awhile. "It's quite a set-up you have here," Harry commented.  
  
"It's Buckingham Palace compared to our last hiding place. Here we have water for cleaning, at least."   
  
"How do you keep in contact with the outside?"   
  
Lupin smiled. "Obviously owls can't get in here; they leave letters in a rabbit burrow and we pick them up later. It's risky, of course. One of the main reasons we abandoned our last hold-out was that we were tracked. There are resistence members who live above ground still. George Weasley for one." Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry. You probably thought he was..."  
  
"Yeah. I did."   
  
"The truth is, splitting up the twins was just necessary. They attract too much attention together. Also, he looks after Mr. and Mrs. Weasley," the older man explained. "He brings us most of our supplies, every couple of weeks." He paused. "Ron is a sore spot with the entire family. Especially after Bill was killed in the initial fight. We didn't go underground without a fight."   
  
"I never imagined you did." Harry turned his attention towards daughter; she was wrapped up in warm clothes and sipping a cup of tea, laughing at something Fred Weasley was telling her. "She's grown up in hell. But she's amazing. She's everything I hoped she'd be." He sniffed suddenly. "I suppose that's all Hermione's doing."   
  
"Hermione's a strong woman, there's no doubt about that. But your death, Harry..." Lupin sighed. "We've never recovered. Any of us. It was just too sudden."   
  
"So I've been told," he replied. After a pause, he continued, "Why am I here? I mean...I understand the basic of the physics behind it. But Remus, wouldn't it make more sense for me to go back now, knowing what I know? If I could stop Voldemort from ever rising...this entire world would be different."  
  
Lupin settled back against a rock, studying Harry carefully. "Can't you tell, Harry? Can't you understand why she's done it this way?"   
  
"To have me help save this world," Harry said. "Right?"  
  
"Partly, yes. She's barely eighteen; she's never had the luxury of being naive, but she's still innocent enough to believe in miracles. But more than that..." He smiled sadly. "She's only ever wanted to meet you. You're her father. Tell me...if you had the means to meet James..." He trailed off, not needing to finish the question.  
  
Harry sighed, silently berating himself. "Of course. I should have known. It's just...it seems like there must have been a better way."   
  
"Well, again, she's barely eighteen. She doesn't know everything. She doesn't even know how to fly a broomstick. I'm sure she could if she tried, but there's no way. It's risky enough for her to step outside."   
  
Despite the situation, Harry let his jaw drop. "Now there's all the reason I need to do whatever I can to fix things. A child of mine who can't fly...I can't allow it."   
  
A moment of quiet thought passed. "You know...as much as I'd love to have you stay, Harry," Lupin shook his hair away from his face. "You really don't belong here."  
  
"I don't, no." The younger man lightly massaged his temple. "My place is in the past. I need to get back there."   
  
"Then..." Lupin stood and brushed off his tattered robes. "We should get it done as soon as possible. You might have already been missing for a day in your time." Harry followed him, ignoring the fact that he was only wearing pants. "Emma!" he called out to Harry's daughter. "Emma...can we talk to you, love?"  
  
Frowning, the girl handed her tea cup to Lavender and stood up as the two men approached. "What's wrong?"  
  
"Emma, we've been discussing the situation that you've put Harry in," the former Marauder began. "And please don't think I'm chastising you for what you did. Believe me...I understand." After giving her a warm smile, he continued, "However, you know as well as I that your father's home...and the place where he can do the most good now...is not here."   
  
She looked back and forth between them; her eyes were almost entirely liquid green as the realization of what he was saying set in. "Is it really that awful being here?" she finally asked Harry in a choked whisper.   
  
"Don't think of that way," Harry told her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. The girl's chin wobbled at the sudden contact. It was the first fatherly touch she had ever known. "Just imagine this. If I go back now and do what I can to prevent the Rising, everything you know here will be different automatically. Isn't that what you want?"  
  
Emma brushed away a tear. "But if you stay here and help us...them fight, then..." She stopped. "It's me, isn't it? You're uncomfortable around me; I can tell."   
  
By this time, they had attracted a sympathetic audience. Percy came up behind Emma, patting her other shoulder like an older brother. "Don't be silly," he softly instructed her. "You're a smart girl. You know what needs to be done."   
  
She shook her head. "Do you know what I had to go through to get him here at all?"  
  
"No one's mad at you, Emma," Cho assured her.   
  
"Then why are you all trying to punish me?!" the girl cried. "I just got him! I haven't even gotten to ask him all the things..." She clapped a hand to her mouth. "I didn't mean that! I swear...I didn't bring him here just for me!!" Her frantic gaze turned to Lupin. "I wouldn't be that selfish."   
  
"You couldn't be selfish if you tried." He reached out to stroke her cheek. "But you know that keeping him here..."  
  
"Would be," she finished dully. "I know." A minute passed. "There's a problem."   
  
Harry shot a look around at his old friends. "A problem?"   
  
Emma nodded, suddenly miserable. "You see...I haven't figured out how to reverse the spell...and return someone to their normal time." She chewed her lower lip for a second. "Not exactly, anyway."   
  
"Oh, Emma..." Lupin's forehead wrinkled in disappointment. "I know for a fact that your mother has taught you better than that."   
  
The girl lowered her head. "I'm sorry." She sniffed and snuck a quick peek at Harry. "I'm so sorry. I just...wanted to help. You were right. I didn't plan; I just acted." Emma looked back down. "I'm sorry...everyone!" With a sob, she broke free of the crowd and ran for the solitude of the tents.   
  
Harry made a motion to follow her, but the sound of water splashing in the lagoon immediately stole the group's attention. A head surfaced; the man attached to it wasted no time kicking for the shore.   
  
"George?!" Fred ran to the water's edge as his identical brother came closer.   
  
Next to Harry, Neville tugged at his sweater's sleeve, worried. "I have a bad feeling about this."   
  
The twins embraced when George managed to drag himself to his feet; it was uncanny...they had each dressed that morning a couple hundred miles away from each other, but they had somehow both put on khaki pants and navy blue pullover shirts.   
  
With Fred's help, George approached the group. "I have...bad news." His troubled eyes landed on Harry and blinked several times in rapid succession. "Did my charm not work? Have I died and gone to the better place?" he asked.   
  
"It's Harry from the past," Fred explained. "Tell him 'hello.' He's been through a lot today."   
  
George seemed to accept this without further scrutiny. "Hello, mate. Welcome back." He wiped his wet face with his hand and refocused. "It's what we feared," he said straight to Lupin.   
  
The older man instantly paled. "God no..."  
  
"It happened late this afternoon. When I got there, she was gone and Dad was unconscious." There was a general wave of panic and concern at this. Percy and Charlie's both balled up their fists so tightly that Harry was afraid he might see blood soon. George went on, "When he came to, he told me that Ron has her. He's figured it out, Remus."   
  
"So it would seem," Lupin said, rubbing a shaking hand across his forehead.   
  
Harry shook his head. "Who are we talking about? What's Ron done?"  
  
Long looks shot back and forth between the Order members. After a minute, Percy took it upon himself to step forward. "It's...our mother, Harry. Ron's taken her to Voldemort."  
  
"But...why?"  
  
Sighing, Lupin put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Molly Weasley...is Hermione and Emma's Secret-Keeper."  
  
****  
  
To Be Continued 


	5. Breathless

Disclaimer: La la la...not mine, not mine, not mine.  
  
Author's Notes: Yay! Thanks everyone, for reading, reviewing, enjoying! I know time-travel is confusing; trust me...the details are spinning my head, too. But by the very right of what it is (time-travel) supsension of disbelief is called for;) Enjoy; this chapter should be longer than the last few! It's certainly felt like it's taken forever to get out.  
  
****  
  
Until Such A Time  
by Kristen Elizabeth   
  
****  
  
Harry was already ten feet out into the lagoon and halfway through re-conjuring the Bubble Head Charm before Lupin and Hagrid caught up with him. He tried to fight off their protests that he calm down, think clearly and stay where it was safe. Harry was beyond reason.   
  
The future Ron that he could barely recognize as his oldest friend was now one step closer to his incomprehensible goal of destroying Hermione and Emma. His wife...his daughter. Harry lashed out at the Order members who were keeping him from leaving. "Someone has to warn her! She's all alone in the house!"  
  
"Harry!" Lupin grabbed his shoulders. "You can't go off like this. You'll only wind up getting spotted. Or worse. I shudder to think what Voldemort would do to you a second time around."   
  
"I don't care what happens to me! But I can't let anything happen to Hermione. In any time period." From the open flap of the tent she had fled to moments earlier, Emma watched the confrontation taking place in the water. The bubble around his head muffled his words, but Harry continued, "Just let me go, Remus."  
  
The older man shook his head. "And if I do, what then, Harry? Will you Apparate back to the house and haul Hermione away to safety? If you don't succeed in giving her a heart attack, be sure to watch out for her wand. She's not daft; she'll have the same reaction we all did at first, and she'll zap you into oblivion for trying to trick her."   
  
"'arry," Hagrid began. "We not gonna see 'ermione hurt. 'elp us think up a plan."   
  
"While we're thinking up plans, Ron could be knocking on the cottage's door!" Harry replied, harshly.   
  
Still dripping wet, George cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify his voice. "Have faith in our Mum, Harry." He sneezed suddenly and was ushered away a second later by his twin and Cho, presumably for dry clothes and hot tea.   
  
"He's right, Harry. You must have faith in Molly." Lupin pulled the younger man towards shore. Hagrid placed himself behind Harry to prevent him from doubling back. "Why do you think we asked her to be the Secret-Keeper? Not only is she loyal to the Order and trustworthy beyond all measure, she's Ron's mother. Even I don't believe that Ron is far gone enough to torture his own mother for the Secret, and I've seen some his handiwork."   
  
Harry trudged out of the water against his will. Fat beads of water dripped off the ends of his hair, running down his face, neck and bare chest. His body shivered, but he was not even aware of the cold. All he could think about was Hermione...both versions of her. The down-trodden forty-something Hermione whose life was suddenly in grave danger and the twenty-something Hermione in the past who might already be grieving for his disappearance. He only hoped whatever she was going through back there wouldn't affect the baby she carried.  
  
As if on cue, Emma approached him. "Father," she began, hesitant to use the word. "I should be going home anyway before she misses me. We'll be all right together. I promise."   
  
"Emma, I don't like the idea of you going above ground alone, even only to Apparate," Lupin said, wringing out the edge of his robes.  
  
"I'll be fine. I do it all the time." She chuckled nervously. "Can you neglect to pass that on to Mum?"  
  
"Gladly." Lupin glanced back at Harry. "What do you say about her going alone?"  
  
He blinked and shook his head, sending water drops flying. "I don't know. She's not my..." Silence swallowed the rest of the sentence. After an uncomfortable pause, he picked up with, "I think she's capable of taking care of herself."   
  
It didn't take Divination to sense the immense hurt welling up inside of Harry's daughter. Lupin could only watch her face crumple and be proud of how, seconds later, she managed to pull herself together enough to nod at them all. "How much should I tell Mum?" she asked. There was a wobble in her voice still.   
  
"Everything," Percy replied. "You both need to be prepared for the worst. Pack a few things, be ready to move at a moment's..."  
  
"So much for trusting Mum," Charlie scowled at his younger brother.   
  
Percy returned the look with one of his own. "I trust Mum implicably, Charlie. But we're talking about her ickle Ronnekins. How long is she going to be able to hold out against him?"   
  
"As long as it takes for us to find her," he shot back hotly. "She knows, better than anyone, that this Ron isn't *our* Ron. And that *our* Ron...he might never come back!"  
  
"Don't say that!" From her place next to one of the campfires, Lavender shot to her feet. "You never know! He could come to his senses someday! He could come back to us!" The tears that slid down her cheeks sparkled in the fire's light. "He could...he really could..."  
  
Two other women Harry didn't recognize rushed to comfort her. Neville hung back, his hands in his pockets. With Emma only a foot or so away, Harry turned to her. "I was under the impression that Neville and Lavender..."  
  
"They are," she replied, tightly crossing her arms. "It's just...as far as I can gather, she always had a thing for *him.*" The way the girl hissed the word entirely gave away the fact that she was not referring to Neville.   
  
"They dated in school. Briefly," Harry recalled out loud. "I didn't know she kept caring about..." He sighed, too emotionally drained to keep talking. Neville's face was colored with jealousy and hurt. Percy and Charlie were practically at each other's throats. And Ron was the source of everyone's problems. It was like this world was an evil negative of the one from which he had been ripped.   
  
Seeming to sense his distress, Emma softly cleared her throat to get his attention. "I'm going to slip out now while everyone's busy."   
  
"Be careful," Harry instinctively told her.   
  
She gave him a strange look, as if she wasn't sure why he suddenly cared. "I'll take care of Mum. Or she'll take care of me." The odd expression faded and was replaced by a bright, youthful smile. "We take care of each other."   
  
Harry was about to reply when the argument near the tents escalated. "Percy, don't be a prick," Fred ordered, his voice almost echoing off the cavern walls. "Mum won't crack for Ron. Ginny was always her favorite."   
  
"Things are bad enough. Can you not bring Ginny into this, Fred?" George asked. It was, perhaps, the first time he had chastised his twin.   
  
"May she rest in peace," Lupin offered. "Now is not the time to be fighting, everyone. We need to come up with a plan to retrieve Molly Weasley that's both practical and plausible."   
  
Lavender was still in tears. "We shouldn't just write Ron off," she hiccuped.   
  
"We're not," one of the women soothed her. "There might still be a way."   
  
Hagrid sniffed. "Oh...I 'ope so. I surely do. Nuthin' makes my heart sadder than seein' Ron Weasley like this."   
  
Shaking his head, Neville disappeared into the shadows.  
  
Emma licked her lips. "I'm going now," she whispered to Harry. He nodded. "And Father..." She paused, her wand out and ready to conjure the necessary charm. "I'll find a way to send you back. I don't blame you...for not wanting to be here." She looked down at her shoes. "Sometimes I don't want to be here either."   
  
Harry watched her slip silently into the water and disappear below the surface. When she was gone, he wove his way through the Order members back to the place where his clothes lay. They were still slightly damp, but he pulled on the shirt and robes without complaint. Lupin was the first to notice her absence. "Where's Emma, Harry?"  
  
"She went to be with her mother," he replied, fastening the clasp of his cloak. "What's the plan?"  
  
****  
****  
  
Eighteen years earlier and what seemed like an entire world away, a very pregnant Hermione paced in front of the large fireplace. Paced was actually the wrong word; in her advanced state, it was more like she waddled. Harry had told her it was her adorable duck walk, an innocent comment that had almost earned him a night on the sofa until she reasoned that it was only her hormones acting out.   
  
Her chin wobbled at the thought of her husband. She took another look at the grandfather clock. Two minutes to midnight. Her gaze drifted to the second clock right next to it. A wedding gift from the Weasleys, it was an exact replica of the one that hung in the Burrow, except that only two little pictures of her and Harry were in it, with a third hand blank and ready for a picture of their baby. The hand with her face on it rested in the "Home" slot; Harry's, however, was "Lost."   
  
There was a loud knock on the front door, but it was merely a formality. Ron appeared in the parlor a moment later, his robes wet from the light rain that had sprung up. "Hermione." He approached her. "How are you holding up?"  
  
"I'll be fine once you tell me that you've found Harry and that he's all right," she said, looking up at her friend with intensely troubled eyes.   
  
Ron squirmed underneath the stare. "I'm sorry, Hermione. We haven't found a trace of him. Yet," he quickly added. "I mean...well..." He shook his head. "Bugger all...he's got to be somewhere, you know?"  
  
With one hand covering her belly, Hermione let her shoulders sag a bit. "I don't understand. What happened, Ron? Where could he have...why would he leave? It's not like him..."   
  
"I don't know." He combed back his wet hair with his fingers. "The only thing I can guess is that the bloody head must've been a Portkey or something."  
  
"Then...he could be anywhere." She took a step back. "Ron. He might not even be in England anymore! Some leftover Death-Eater could have him in their cellar! Oh god..." Hermione put her other hand to her mouth. "Harry...he could be in pain, Ron. He could be...could be *dying* and there's nothing we can do!!"   
  
Ron gently grasped her shoulders. "Hermione, calm down. Getting this upset can't be good for the baby."   
  
"I know." Her eyes closed, but not before twin tears escaped and rolled down her cheeks. "That's what he'd say, too."  
  
"Wherever the shrunken head pulled him to, Harry is entirely capable of taking care of himself. You know that."   
  
She nodded shortly. "Of course he is." Her eyes opened wide. "Unless...he was caught off guard. He might not have had time to fight back once he appeared...wherever. They might have killed him straight away or chained him up to be..."   
  
"Hermione! Stop!" Ron gripped her a little tighter. "If you start thinking the worst...well, it's not a good idea, all right? You have to stay calm and trust Harry. Not to mention the Ministry. There's at least ten Aurors searching for him, my brothers included."  
  
"You're asking me to think rationally while my husband, who should have been home six hours ago, has seemingly vanished off the face of the earth before your very eyes?!?" She quelled her own outburst by moving her hand to cup his cheek. "Ron...I'm sorry. I'm just so worried about him. I can't even think straight."   
  
He patted her hand. "I know it might seem impossible, but you need to eat and sleep. For the baby...you know. Harry will turn up, probably peeved to all hell at this silly practical joke someone's played on him."   
  
She nodded because it was the only thing she could do. "Maybe he'll show up in the morning."  
  
"Sure. Of course. It's all going to be fine, Hermione." Ron cleared his throat. "Um...do you want to be alone now? Because...you know...I can stay, but I don't know how much good I can really..."  
  
"Do you have somewhere to be, Ron?" Her tone was wry.   
  
He blushed profusely. "I have a...a date with Serafina. But if you need me..."  
  
"Oh, call it what it is. A midnight shag session." Hermione gave his shoulder a friendly shove. "Go. Have fun. I'll be all right by myself."  
  
"You're certain?" he asked, although his face indicated that he was greatly relieved. When she nodded, he leaned in and kissed her cheek. "I'll stop by in the morning, or as soon as I know anything more." Ron backed up and out the parlor door. "Take care of yourself, Hermione." He stuck his head back into the room. "And remember. No one's succeeded in getting rid of Harry Potter yet and I doubt anyone ever will."   
  
Hermione made a face at him. "Your words of comfort are touching, Ronald."   
  
His eyes were apologetic. "Goodnight."   
  
After she heard the front door slam behind him, Hermione stood and stared at the dying fire for a few more long minutes until the short flames turned into orange embers. After securing the house for the night, she waddled her way into the bedroom she shared with Harry.   
  
The bed was still unmade from the night before; she found it a nearly impossible task to make it with the huge ball of her stomach in the way. Sensing that her mother was thinking about her, the baby kicked several times.   
  
"Please not tonight, baby girl," she pleaded, caressing her belly. But the baby ignored her and moved even more, turning Hermione's body into a little rollercoaster. She sighed. At times like this, when their child seemed determined to keep her awake for endless hours, all Harry would have to do was lay his head onto her stomach and whisper a few words. The sound of her father's voice always calmed the baby.   
  
But he wasn't there that night and while Hermione prepared for bed, her child kept up a steady round of kicks and punches that would have made a black-belt martial artist proud. Weary from worry, she did her best to ignore the odd internal sensations and slid between the cold sheets.   
  
Her body was programmed to seek Harry's warmth; she had to settle for his pillow instead. Within seconds, it was soaked with her tears.   
  
"Harry," Hermione whispered into the soft fabric that should have been supporting his head. "Where are you?"  
  
****  
****  
  
"'Where is he?'" Lupin repeated Harry's question, his brow furred. "What do you mean 'where is he'? You're not seriously thinking that we might storm Voldemort's fortress, are you?"  
  
"I'm not," Harry clarified. "But you must have some idea where Ron would have taken his mother." He looked around at the Order. "Any idea?"   
  
Seamus shook his head. "Sorry, mate. We've only ever gotten to play defense. Offense has never been an option."   
  
"There's no intelligence set up or anything?" He ran a hand through his black locks. "I refuse to believe you have no way of monitoring your enemy. That's just bad tactics."   
  
"Are you volunteering to go up and have a look around, Harry?" Neville broke off a piece of stale bread and threw it into the fire. "Be our guest; just watch your back."   
  
Lavender grabbed his hand. "Let's not jump all over Harry. He's at least considering every option, something we might think about doing every now and..."  
  
"Lavender," Cho admonished her.   
  
"I'm only saying," she continued, pressing the length of her side against Neville's, an unspoken apology if Harry had ever seen one. "And now I'm done."  
  
Lupin looked back at Harry. "We do have intelligence. Spies were in place everywhere...last we heard. But contact with them is so risky. There's no real way of knowing if they're still loyal or still alive." He hesitated. "Some of our old reports indicate that Voldemort might have set up...in Hogwarts."   
  
"Hogwarts?" Outrage lit up Harry's eyes. "How dare he?! Mocking everything Dumbledore stood for...Emma's already told me all about the school. This is too much." He slammed his palm down onto the hard ground and stood up. "It sounds like a logical place to start."   
  
"Come on, Harry." Across the fire, Fred shook his head against a large rock that supported him. "I'd give us better odds on a fortress than on getting into Hogwarts. He couldn't have picked a better spot, eh?"  
  
George shook his head. "Diabolical, he is."  
  
"It's likely the most probable place where Mum might be," Percy spoke up. "But there's no way to get in and even if there were, it is still a school full of innocent children. Starting a battle there could be disastrous."  
  
"I'd hardly call the childen admitted into Hogwarts these days 'innocent'," Neville muttered.   
  
Seamus frowned. "You're a regular ray of sunshine today, Longbottom."   
  
"I just find it...interesting that Harry, the only one of us who could conceivably be willing to think the best of Ron, is just about the only one who's not looking to redeem him." He wrenched his hand away from Lavender's and stood up. "Harry...if you're going to Hogwarts, I'm with you."  
  
Sobered by the generally good-natured man's outburst, Seamus stood. "So am I. Ron's gone too far this time. And he's too close to his goal now."  
  
Several more people stood, including Charlie, the twins and Cho. Harry looked around at the people who remained seated. "We need all the help we can get," he told them.   
  
"It's not as simple as you're making it out to be, Harry," Lupin said sadly.   
  
"Probably not. But Remus..." Harry adjusted his glasses. "For eighteen years, you've taken care of my family when I couldn't. All the risks and sacrifices you must have made...all of you." He turned around to see everyone. "Now Hermione and Emma need you more than ever. Are you going to keep on helping them by helping us?"   
  
More people stood. Percy and Lavender. Hagrid. And finally, Lupin. He shook his head at Harry. "This might very well be a suicide mission, you know?"   
  
"I've already died once," Harry said, non-chalantly. "It doesn't seem all that frightening anymore."   
  
"And everyone else?"  
  
Harry glanced around the rag-tag group of his old friends. "The phoenix might be gone, but the Order still exists. Still, if anyone is unsure, please don't think you have to..."  
  
"We're sure, Harry," Cho stated for the whole contingent. "We're tired of living underground. Offense is sounding awfully promising right now."   
  
Lupin gave in. "We have the big picture of the plan. Now what about the details? Just how do you intend to get into Hogwarts?"   
  
****  
  
He Apparated into the parlor of the cottage nearly an hour later. Instantly, he regretted the fact that his Invisibility Cloak had been left upstairs in Emma's room. Hermione had a habit of staying up late to read by the fire; even pregnancy hadn't been able to break her of that.  
  
Fortunately, the parlor was empty. Harry breathed a little sigh of relief and began his search. He was looking for a single object, Hermione's old, battered, original copy of "Hogwarts: A History." It had been her bible in their first few years at school; later on, it became the source of Hermione's greatest project, one that she had only shared with Harry.   
  
Because she had learned the details of the spells and enchantments that guarded Hogwarts from Muggle eyes and unfriendly intruders when she was only eleven years old, Hermione eventually had turned her attention to another aspect of the castle's protection: how to get around it. The last time she had shown him her book, right after they were married, she had figured out counter-spells and charms for almost every barrier the school had. They were all scribbled in the book's margins in her hasty, but neat cursive.   
  
It was their best shot at getting into Hogwarts and if she was there, rescuing Molly Weasley. When he had thought things through with a clear head, Harry recalled Ron's words outside of the cottage at sunset. He hadn't known who the Secret-Keeper was at that time, but only hours later he had snatched his mother out of her home. The only conclusion Harry could draw was that Ron probably didn't know it was his mother at all; but he did know that she knew who it was.  
  
And that still put Mrs. Weasley in great danger, but let up some of the urgency within Harry to protect Hermione and Emma. Ron's mother had the strongest backbone of any woman Harry had ever known; she needed it to have raised six boys. And one girl.   
  
Harry paused as he searched a stack of books next to Hermione's old rocking chair. Ginny Weasley's death...if there had been a beginning of the end, that was probably it. There had been no way of knowing that her first-year experience with Tom Riddle's diary and the Chamber of Secrets had created an invisible connection between her and the Dark Lord. As his power had grown weaker with every attack against him and his followers, she had faded away, spending her last few minutes on the earth in Harry's arms in the Gryffindor common room with the whole of the House looking on in grief and shock.   
  
It gave him no comfort later to learn that she had always wanted to be there.   
  
He gave up on the one stack of books and moved to another. The guilt over Ginny's death had eased with every passing year; so much of his absolution had come from Hermione's unconditional love. Knowing that Ron's family hadn't held him responsible had helped, too. But it didn't bring Ginny back to the world and the people who had loved her.   
  
Finally, he spotted the familiar, highly-worn, embossed spine of Hermione's favorite book. Harry pulled out of the stack and smiled triumphantly. "Good to see you again, old friend." He stood, the book in his hand, and turned back around to face the fireplace and prepare for Disapparation.  
  
His heart dropped somewhere around his knees as he came face to face with Hermione.   
  
****  
  
To Be Continued 


	6. Nothing heals me like you do

Disclaimer: Characters not mine, for the hundreth time. JK Rowling is the creator; we all merely borrow from her.   
  
Author's Notes: Thank you so much for the last chapter's feedback. Yes, my cliffhangers are bad; I'm sorry. I'm practicing for when I'm a writer on a TV drama or soap opera;) Fade to commercial... Thanks for hanging on with me, despite them. Or perhaps because of them. Who knows? At any rate, thank you for reading and reviewing.   
  
PS: Did you hear that they cast Lupin? A British actor named David Thewlis, according to the report I read from the BBC. I looked him up. He's perfect. Just FYI;)   
  
****  
  
Until Such A Time  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
****  
  
"Harry?" The word came out on the breathless strands of a whisper. Hermione didn't move; she appeared to be frozen to the spot. But he could see tears building up in her wide-open eyes. As he continued to watch the older version of his wife, unable to think of a single thing to say, she blinked and let her tears fall.   
  
He cursed himself for being so careless. With everything that had happened to Hermione, she shouldn't have to be standing there, going through this particular brand of torture. Setting down the book in his hands, Harry swallowed and opened his mouth to say something, anything.   
  
But she spoke first. With her eyes firmly shut, Hermione shook her head. "You're not real. You're never real. You're dead and you're not coming back to me. When I open my eyes again, I know you won't be there. Because I am *not* crazy."   
  
"Hermione..."  
  
She clapped her hands over her ears. Her brown hair, sadly touched throughout with grey, swung against her frail shoulders. "No...no, you're not really talking to me. It's all in my head." She repeated this several times, as if to force herself into believing it.   
  
Harry stepped forward and reached for her hands. "You're not crazy," he assured her. Her skin was cold to the touch and she visibly flinched at the contact. "It's me."  
  
Her eyes opened; she looked up at him with watery distrust. "Who are you?" Hermione broke away from him with violent motions. "Why are you doing this to me?!"  
  
"Hermione, it's going to take a bit of explanation, but I really am Harry. I'm not trying to fool or trick you, I swear." He laid his palms against his chest. "I'm Harry from eighteen years..."  
  
"I don't know who you think you are, but coming into my house parading as him is just about the cruelest thing anyone could do." He watched her whip her wand out from inside her bathrobe and point it directly at his face. "Now...tell me who you are and how you got in here."   
  
Harry lifted his hands into the air; Sirius had been right. "You have every right to think I'm not who I say I am. But please know..." He stopped to consider his next words. Just as Emma had been forced to prove herself to him, it was now his turn to prove his own identity to the woman he loved. "Hermione, do you still have the bikini?"  
  
The hard corner of her mouth twitched. "The bikini."   
  
"You know the one I'm talking about," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "Don't tell me I'm going to have to remind you."   
  
Her arm wavered, and the twitch in her lip turned into a quiver. "You've been through my things, too? What gives you the right to..."  
  
"Hermione, it's me! I know about the bikini because I'm the one who talked you into buying it on our honeymoon in Hawaii. And I'm the only person who's ever gotten to see it on you...at least to my knowledge...because we never quite made it down to the beach. It's blue with little pink flowers..." He moved forward, his hands still in the air. "The ties on the top have been magically sewn back into place more than once." Harry stopped; the end of her wand almost touched the tip of his nose. "I'm not here to hurt you, love."   
  
The wand lowered and her tears reappeared. "You touched me. You're not a ghost?"  
  
"No," he said softly. "I'm as alive as you are."   
  
"Then...that's not saying much." Hermione reached out a tentative hand to touch his cheek. "You look like you do in my dreams. Just like...the last time I saw you." She spoke between soft, choked sobs. "How can you...how can you be here?"   
  
Unable to lie to her, Harry gave her a quick review of the day's events, glossing over Emma's involvement. All the while, her cold hand rested on his cheek. As his tale drew to a close, he reached up and covered her hand with his to warm it. "So...here I am. This wasn't how I wanted to see you. I hadn't even decided if it would be a good idea to see you at all. But...it's happened and I think we're dealing just fine." He smiled at her.  
  
It was a smile she hadn't seen in eighteen years and one that she had never expected to see again. She had forgotten how his smile lit up his entire face, making him a thousand times more handsome. His eyes sparkled like rare emeralds; his hair was thick, unruly as ever, and shone even in the dim light. He was healthy...youthful...the love of her life. Forever twenty-four in her mind and now standing right in front of her once again, not having aged a day.  
  
All too suddenly, Hermione remembered herself. She pulled her hand back from his smooth cheek and touched her own. She could feel the signs of age that had formed in eighteen years. Laugh lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, although she had done little laughing since his death. She touched her hair, painfully aware of the grey hairs that seemed to multiply every day. Her body was so thin now, almost bony. She was forty-two years old. All too aware of it, she looked down at the floor.   
  
"Hermione?" Harry frowned. "I know this is a lot to take in, but..." She turned around. "Can we at least talk about it? There are some things we need to..."  
  
"How can you even stand looking at me?" she whispered.   
  
"What?"  
  
Hermione crossed her arms, hugging her entire frame. "Nothing. Never mind."  
  
"No, you said..." Harry cut himself off. It didn't take a smart man to figure this problem out. Hermione had always put about as much emphasis onto looks as he did, she perhaps more so because she was a woman at heart. But it had never been an issue for her. Now...there they were. Two very different ages, at two very different stages of their lives. Truth be told, he had noticed the wrinkles and grey hairs...and he discovered in that moment that none of it mattered.   
  
"Please turn around," he said, leaving little room for argument. When she finally did so, Harry reached for her chin and lifted it up to meet his eyes. "You're still my Hermione. And...you're beautiful."   
  
Wet and warm, her tears cascaded over his fingers. "It shouldn't be possible...but you are...Harry. Harry." A moment passed between them. If it was all a dream, Hermione could only hope that she wouldn't wake up just yet. There was something she wanted to do, something she always woke up just before she got to do. Without hesitating another second, she wound her arms around his neck, nearly crying out at the aching sensation of his body pressing against hers. "Harry..." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Oh...you're not a dream either! You're really...truly here!"  
  
Harry's own arms closed around her, completing the embrace. She still fit perfectly there, like she was always meant to, no matter how old they grew together or apart. "It's not a dream. I promise." His chin could still rest the top of her head; he closed his eyes and held on to her.   
  
"There have been days," she began, her words nearly drowned as she pressed her cheek against the crook of his neck. "When I have missed you so much...that I wanted to die."   
  
"Don't say that, Hermione. Ever."   
  
Her back spasmed beneath his hand with a fresh sob. "I'm sorry. But it's true. And the only thing that kept me going was..." She froze. "Oh god. You don't know about..."  
  
"Emma?" he guessed. Smiling, he dropped a kiss onto her hair. She still used her vanilla shampoo, the one he loved so much. "I didn't want to rat on our daughter, but she's the whole reason I'm here."   
  
"You've met her?" Hermione reluctantly drew back. "She...brought you here? She didn't say anything to me about it."   
  
"It's an even longer story." Harry kept his eyes on Hermione as he spoke his next words. "In fact, why don't you come in here and tell your mother everything, Emma?"  
  
It only took a second for Emma to step out from behind the obscurity of the wall between the parlor and the hallway. In her plaid pajama set and pigtails, she looked about thirteen. Thirteen and massively sheepish. "Hi, Mum. Hi, Dad." Despite everything, she smiled broadly. "I can't believe I get to say that. You know...out loud and not just in my head."   
  
"Emma." Hermione unwrapped her arms from Harry's neck and stared at her daughter. "What have you done?"  
  
"Well...um..." She twirled the end of one pigtail around her finger. "I only did what you've taught me, Mum. If I ever had a question, you always told me to search until I found the answer. And...that's what I've done."   
  
Natural curiosity, coupled with mounting maternal frustration spread onto Hermione's face. "Just what was your question?"  
  
The girl shot a quick look at Harry. His arms were still around her mother, as if he didn't want to let go. "'What's the best way to make this whole world better?'," she replied. Hermione's mouth dropped open. "It was so clear once I read that book, 'The Hundred Greatest Theories You'll Never Prove.' Remember...the one Remus gave you for Christmas last year?"  
  
"Theory #65. The Time-Traveler..."   
  
"I'm considering writing to the publisher. They'll have to drop it down to ninety-nine now." Emma cleared her throat when neither of her parents offered any congratulations. "It was risky and stupid and I probably shouldn't have tried it at all. I'm sorry, Mum."   
  
Harry looked down at Hermione. "It might not be my place to say so, but she is truly sorry. And she's offered to find a solution." He didn't want to add that merely by living in this nightmare existence, his daughter had already been punished more than enough.   
  
"Of course it's your place. She's your daughter, too," Hermione said.   
  
He nodded non-committally. "Have you made any progress in finding a reversal spell?" he asked Emma.   
  
"You didn't have one when you did the spell in the first pace?"   
  
Emma couldn't meet her mother's uncharacteristically angry eyes. "I told you. I was stupid."   
  
"Oh Emma..." Hermione stepped out of the warm circle of Harry's arms to begin pacing. "Well, young lady. Answer the question. Not my question. Harry's."  
  
"I've...um...it's complicated." The girl heaved a sigh. "It's coming along." She looked at Harry. "I'm really sorry."   
  
Harry gave her a look of understanding. "Why don't you keep at it? I need to talk to Hermione. In private," he added to discourage any further eavesdropping.  
  
Emma turned around, her fuzzy slipper-clad feet dragging. She paused at the doorway and looked back. "I only ever dreamed that I'd get to see both of you. Together. I do apologize for the problems I've accidently created. But I don't think I'm sorry for trying. I mean, Mum...I haven't ever seen you look as happy as you are right now. Doesn't that count for anything?" When she received no reply, Emma continued on her way, disappearing around the corner.  
  
"She's right," Hermione eventually said. "I am happier now than I have been..." She took a breath. "But it's not meant to last. And I understand that. You don't belong here. The order of the world has been altered. By our eighteen year-old daughter."  
  
Harry tucked his hands into the pockets of his pants. "She's a lot smarter than I was at that age."   
  
"Book smart, maybe. But that's all she knows. Practical applications in real life situations...she has no idea," Hermione said sadly. A moment passed. "How are you dealing with all of this, Harry?"  
  
"One minute, one new surprise at a time," he replied. "I have to say that, unfortunately, the hardest thing...is seeing Emma. The only image I had of her in my mind before this afternoon was from the sonogram photographs. I keep having to remind myself that this...woman in front of me is my daughter." Harry reached for the book he had set down earlier. "I missed her whole life. So...I can't be too angry at her for bringing me here. Because if she hadn't..."  
  
"You would have missed it all anyway," Hermione finished for him. "There is so much I want to tell you, Harry, but..." She frowned. "What are you doing with my book?" With one hand, she brushed away more tears and with the other, she reached for the thick volume. "All those years I tried to get you to read it and *now* you're interested?"  
  
He chuckled. "I really wish it was that simple." His smile fell. "Hermione...you and Emma are in danger."   
  
"Every day of our lives, Harry."   
  
"No, more so now than ever. Ron took his mother from her house today."   
  
All the blood drained from Hermione's face. "Ron has...Molly?" she whispered. "He knows...he knows where..."  
  
"I don't think Ron has any idea what he really has. But he does know that his mother knows something. That gives us time, but not much."   
  
She clasped her head between her hands. "This is all happening...so fast."   
  
"Remus and the others believe that Voldemort might be operating out of Hogwarts, which would make sense." Harry paused. "I sound like a bad American mafia movie."   
  
"It would, yes."  
  
He picked up where he had left off, indicating her book, "Did you ever finish the project?"  
  
Hermione dipped her head. "For the most part...Harry!" Her full attention snapped back to him. "You're not thinking of..."  
  
"It's the only way, Hermione. I know that Mrs. Weasley could probably hold out for a long time; she's a tough lady. But it's just not a worthwhile risk." Tucking the book under one arm, he reached out to brush his fingers along her jaw. "You're too important. You and Emma."   
  
She thought for a moment. "And Remus is on board with this?"   
  
"Reluctantly, but yes."   
  
"Remus is very...cautious these days. He takes such wonderful care of us, even from the underground. We wouldn't have survived all this time without him. He's sometimes *too* cautious. You must have been a very powerful influence for him to agree to this." Hermione shifted her slight weight from one foot to the other. "You're like...this amazing breath of air, Harry. After so long without oxygen. It's as if life has come back...and we can all pick up where we left off." She lowered her eyes. "Don't worry. I know it can't last."   
  
Harry took her fingers and pressed them against his lips. "Let's only think about rescuing Mrs. Weasley. The rest will come when it comes. And we'll deal with it accordingly."   
  
Hermione's eyelids fluttered at the warmth of his mouth against her skin. "What are Emma and I to do? I can't just sit here...knowing everyone is putting themselves in such danger."   
  
"Come with us. We need your power, Hermione. Your knowledge."   
  
"Harry...I haven't...I couldn't. After all this time...going into battle again?"   
  
With a smile, he squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Come on. Aren't you a little stir-crazy?"   
  
Her brown eyes clouded over with fresh tears. "I suppose I am." She brushed them away and nodded. "All right. I'll storm the castle with you, Harry Potter."   
  
"I knew you wouldn't say 'no'," he winked.   
  
She looked down at the floor. "I could never deny you anything. Why on earth do you think I agreed to buy that bikini?"   
  
A few seconds of heavy silence passed between them. Finally, Harry dipped his head, brushing a kiss across her mouth. Hermione whimpered slightly at the sudden intimacy, but her body, so long denied, responded by kissing him back, harder and deeper.   
  
She broke away a minute later when it became too much. Her hands were tangled in his hair; his slid up and down her back. Gasping for air, Hermione shook her head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I'm old enough to be your..."   
  
"Wife," he replied, doing a little panting himself.   
  
"Mother," she corrected him.   
  
Harry frowned. "If I threw some flour into my hair to make it look older, would that make it all better?"  
  
"Be honest." She put her hands on her hips, her classic argument position. "Didn't you feel just a little bit like you were cheating on me? The younger me?"   
  
"Maybe," Harry admitted a second later. "Just a little bit though. I told you...you're still my Hermione."   
  
"But I'm not. Not really. I've changed, Harry. I'm not the same woman I was...the woman you knew. Your Hermione...your real Hermione...is back in your world. Pregnant and probably missing you." Hermione forced herself to smile. "So, instead of standing here we should be doing what's necessary to get you back to her. Yes?" Leaving no room for discussion, she backed up towards the door. "Let me go change and we'll head to the hide-out."   
  
Harry took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. "What about Emma?"   
  
"She'll come with us, of course. But she'll stay there. I don't want her in any danger whatsoever." Hermione hesitated. "She's all I have left...of you." Turning on her heel, Hermione left him alone in the parlor, holding a copy of "Hogwarts: A History" and still tasting her lips on his.  
  
****  
  
To Be Continued 


	7. How does it feel?

Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to me, but to JK Rowling who created them and writes them much better than I do;)  
  
Author's Notes: Thank you for all the support on this story! I know I sound repetitive in my notes sometimes, but I really do appreciate everyone who takes the time to read/review one of my stories. I hope you keep doing so, and that it continues to hold your interest.   
  
****  
  
Until Such A Time  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
****  
  
He didn't like the way Lupin looked at her when they surfaced from the cold loch water. He didn't like the how the man's eyes lit up; he didn't like the way she smiled and swam for the shore. And he definitely didn't like they way they embraced, holding each other for just as long as was proper, but too long for Harry to ignore. An unfamiliar emotion bubbled up in the dead center of his chest.   
  
Jealousy.  
  
It wouldn't be a matter of merely shrugging this feeling off. As he and Emma emerged onto dry land, Harry watched the older version of his wife with their former professor. They were speaking, but their conversation was too low for him to hear. If he had been pressed for a logical guess, he would have supposed that Lupin was checking on her well-being in all the confusion and excitement.   
  
But he wasn't exactly thinking logically. He could only imagine what whispered words they might be exchanging. Before it drove him crazy, Harry shook his head, flinging water every which way. It was insane. Lupin was twenty years their senior, ancient now to a twenty-four year old.   
  
But to a forty-two year old...twenty years didn't seem like all that much.   
  
Lupin called to him, "Harry. Are you all right?"  
  
He blinked and looked at them again, saw the worry and concern in both of their eyes. There was more than that though. Guilt was hidden on each of their faces; Hermione even had to avert her gaze away from his. Harry swallowed. "I'm just fine. Where do we stand?"  
  
"We're working on gathering as many people as we can," Percy replied, coming up from behind Hermione and Lupin. "George has gone back up to collect the rest of the Order."   
  
"And once everyone is here?"   
  
"That all depends on whether you got it or not," Lupin said. "I assume you did?"  
  
Emma unzipped her waterproof jacket and pulled her mother's thick book out from it. "Here it is. Safe and sound, Mum, just like I promised."   
  
Hermione smiled at her daughter and took the book. "Haven't you still got some research to do?" she gently reminded her.   
  
With a sigh, Emma pulled out another book, found a quiet place near a clump of rocks and settled back into the business of devising a solution to the time-traveling mess she had instigated.   
  
"All right." While opening the book and flipping the pages, Hermione led the men to the central campfire where the light was better. "The first thing, the first defense Hogwarts has it that it's invisible to Muggles. Not a problem...we've all been there before."   
  
"I haven't," Emma reminded them, raising her voice to be heard.   
  
"Emma." With her daughter placated, Hermione continued, "As you know, it's impossible to Apparate or Disapparate within Hogwarts grounds. Well, not impossible just...difficult."   
  
"You've found a way around that one?" Lupin asked. Was that pride in his tone? Did his eyes shine just a bit too much with it as he looked at *his* wife? Harry's eyes narrowed.   
  
Hermione flipped another page and tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. For a second, Harry felt like he was back in school, studying for exams with his best friend. His girlfriend. "The Quidditch pitch is the trick. I'm not quite sure why, but it's not protected by the barrier. If we Apparate onto it, we can avoid being seen in Hogsmeade altogether." She glanced up. "That is the plan, right?"  
  
"Of course," Percy said. "There are too many of his followers living in Hogsmeade. Including Ron."  
  
"All right then. Now, once we're actually on Hogwarts grounds, we're completely vulnerable. So, might I suggest..." Hermione looked at Harry. "Your cloak? It will expand to fit all of us, yes?"  
  
He blinked. "Er...yes. Sure."  
  
"There's only one problem," she continued with a sigh. "It's up in the attic back at the cottage."   
  
"Mum?"  
  
Hermione waved off her daughter's call. "Give me a second, love." She frowned. "Well, I suppose someone is going to have to go back for.."  
  
"Mum..."   
  
"Emma." She turned to look at her daughter with evident exasperation. "What is it?"  
  
"Dad's cloak...it's sort of...not in the attic."   
  
Hermione folded her arms. "Then, where is it?"  
  
Emma chewed on her lower lip. "Underneath my bed." She held up her hands before her mother could reprimand her. "I know! Okay, once again, I'm sorry!"   
  
Harry stepped towards his daughter. "I'll go back for it," he volunteered. "It's all right."   
  
"Are you sure, Harry? Without the cloak...if anyone saw you on the way there..." Hermione didn't need to finish the thought.  
  
"No one's going to see me; I'll Apparate straight into Emma's room."   
  
Lupin rubbed his jaw. "I don't know, Harry. It's a risk."   
  
"Everything's a risk," Harry shot back, his voice harsher than he had intended it to be. "But it's worth it." He started for the water's edge; despite that, he certainly wasn't thrilled about going back into the water for the fourth time.   
  
Emma hesitated a second before dumping her book into Percy's arms. "Wait! I'll go with you, Dad!"  
  
At this, Hermione firmly shook her head and reached out to restrain the girl. "Absolutely not! You are staying right here, Emma. It's too dangerous out there now."  
  
"Come on, Mum! I'm protected by the charm. Dad's in a lot more danger than I am."  
  
"Your father is also a fully-trained wizard. You are not."   
  
Emma turned around to face her mother. "Mum...you're always saying that I have no practical experience. Well...here's my chance!" Her hazel eyes pleaded with Hermione, begging to be allowed to spend even a short few minutes with her father. "Please? I'll be fine; I promise."   
  
It pained him how Hermione turned to Lupin for his opinion first. When the older man gave a short nod, she looked back at her daughter. "All right. Just...be careful. Please." She glanced at Harry. "Both of you."   
  
Emma nodded, excited, and kissed her mother's cheek. "Love you, Mum!"   
  
"I love you, too," Hermione whispered. She released the girl's shoulders and watched her approach her father's side, a huge smile lighting up her pretty face. As the two waded into the water, she called out to him. "Harry!"  
  
He turned his head. She was standing there, tears shimmering in her eyes. Harry swallowed again; he couldn't seem to get rid of the lump in his throat. Lupin had moved just behind her, a wall of solid comfort for her to lean on if she needed it. "I wouldn't...let anything happen to her," Harry assured them both.   
  
Hermione nodded. A few minutes later, her daughter and husband disappeared under the glass surface of the loch. She let her back curve slightly, knowing that Lupin was right there to keep her standing. He always had been. Eighteen years of shared pains and struggles had turned them into the closest of friends. They could talk about anything...with one exception. They both felt it now as he placed his hands on her shoulders. The only secret they kept...the night nearly seven years past. The night when loneliness, grief, fear, and repressed lust had sent them into each other's arms.   
  
She closed her eyes. Why did her life have to be so complicated?  
  
****  
  
"I'm never going to get the scent of loch water out of my hair," Emma sighed, twisted the thick, chestnut strands of her hair into a rope. "Of course, with a little luck, the cavern won't even be needed anymore soon."  
  
"With a little luck," Harry repeated. He looked around the Scottish highlands; the sky was lighter at the very edge of the horizon, signaling the oncoming dawn. "Let's go; I don't want to be gone too long."  
  
Emma let her wet hair fall back around her shoulders. "Don't worry about me, Dad. The charm..."  
  
"Just how does that work, anyway? I thought the Fidelus could only work on places. Houses."   
  
"That used to be true, up until last year, actually." She began squeezing water out of her rugby shirt. "But then Remus found a way to extend the spell to create the same effect around a single body. Sort of like an Invisibility Cloak, except certain people can still see us, while others can't. Wicked, eh?" Her eyes shone even in the dark. "Remus is so smart. He even figured out his own spell to keep himself...well, himself during the full moon. See, it's a pretty basic..."  
  
Harry cut her off, suddenly sick of thinking about his former professor. "That's fascinating, but we really should get going."   
  
His daughter stared at him for a minute. "It's not me you're worried about, is it. It's Mum. Just Mum." She looked down at the ground. "Yeah, I suppose I should have figured that."   
  
"Emma, don't be ridiculous. Of course I'm worried about you. I'm worried about everyone. And not even just everyone in *this* time." He pushed his own hair, slick with water, off of his brow, baring his infamous scar. Harry dipped his head to see her lowered face. "Are you coming?"   
  
She nodded and lifted her chin. "It's okay, you know. I don't blame you. I mean...it's not like I'm really real."   
  
Her words died on the cold wind that swept over them as she spoke. Harry frowned. "What? I can't hear you."   
  
"It doesn't matter," Emma called back. "C'mon."  
  
Apparation always left Harry with a slight headache that usually faded after a minute or two of standing on solid ground. There was just something about being magically plucked from one place and plopped into another. And he had done it so many times that day; he vaguely remembered McGonagall's warnings to his seventh year class when they were studying the difficult subject. Apparating too many times a day was not doctor recommended.   
  
But within seconds, he was back in his daughter's room. There was little light, and what light there was turned the darkness into a menacing specter. Shadows of stuffed animals loomed over them with fuzzy paws outstretched. Harry glanced over at his daughter. She was already on her knees, rooting underneath her bed for the cloak. Suddenly, he turned his head towards the door; the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rose.   
  
"I've almost got..."   
  
"Shh!" Harry effectively silenced her. "I hear something."   
  
Emma froze, her cheek pressed against the smooth wood floor. "What is it?" she whispered.   
  
He took a slow step forward and kept his voice low and calm. "I think...someone's in the house." A loud, wooden creak just on the other side of her door confirmed this. There wasn't any time to do anything; he just prayed that whoever was there was one of the people on the raw end of the Fidelus Charm. Emma's safety was a much higher priority than his.   
  
The door began to open; with his foot, Harry gently urged his daughter to slide her body under her bed. There wasn't a sound in the room, not even the sound of breathing. With Emma mostly hidden away, Harry took a few steps back, slipping into the relative safety of the dark shadows created by her dresser at the far corner of the room.   
  
When a dark figure entered the pink sugar kingdom of Emma's bedroom, Harry didn't have to be able to see well to figure out who it was. There was just enough pre-dawn light to catch the silver blonde in the man's hair. Harry watched Draco Malfoy, never letting his eyes leave him, as his childhood enemy walked around the room. He wondered what Draco was seeing. Ripped dry wall, a shredded mattress, dust? It certainly seemed that way as the older version of the man picked up a stuffed animal and immediately threw it aside.   
  
Harry bit into his cheek. Draco Malfoy. He hadn't thought about him in years. He had disappeared, along with the rest of his family and his family's friends, after Voldemort's defeat. Harry had always figured he was slinking around Europe like a coward, hiding out in ancient mansions unknown to the Ministry, living off the charity of wizards who might think like him, but were smart enough to hide it well.   
  
Now, obviously, he was back in England and doing just fine if his expensive robes were any clue. Harry felt his fists ball up. Of all the things Draco Malfoy had ever done to him, the small part he had played in Ginny's death was the one thing Harry would never, ever forgive him for.   
  
With his heart pounding within his chest, Harry came to a quick decision. He took a breath and stepped out of the shadows.   
  
"Who's there?" Draco squinted in the darkness; he wore glasses now. Time had touched him as much as it had Hermione. There was more silver than blonde in his slicked back locks. "Weasley?"   
  
Harry forced himself to remain calm, even though he could fairly feel Emma's panic filtering up from under the bed. He moved to the window, letting the light catch his face. It gave him enormous pleasure to hear Draco draw in a huge breath.   
  
"Potter..." Fear dripped from the word; Draco's skin had always been pale, but it was now white, whiter than the hair of a unicorn.   
  
"Draco Malfoy," Harry said, surprising himself with the depths of his voice. He gave it an unearthly quality that only seemed to make the other man paler.  
  
"What the...?" Draco blinked several times. "You're dead..."   
  
Harry stared at him. "Yes. I am."   
  
"A ghost..."   
  
"Draco Malfoy. Leave this place."   
  
He licked his dry lips. "What are you going to do to me, Potter?" The words were brave, but he was not. "Haunt me? Go right ahead...I've got enough ghosts on my conscience. One more won't matter much."   
  
"What conscience?" Harry asked, almost amused. "Return to your master; he's waiting for you."   
  
"Master?" Draco snorted softly. "You've been dead too long. And not watching too closely from wherever you've been. The only master I answer to is myself."   
  
Harry tried not to frown at this. "Do not lie."   
  
"Don't you have anything better to do than to hang around here for all eternity? Shouldn't you be watching them? The Mudblood and her brat?"   
  
Blood boiled beneath the surface of his skin. "I have good reason to be tied to this place. Why are you here, Draco Malfoy?"   
  
The blonde man shook his head, chuckling. "Good question, Potter. Why am I here? It's not what you probably think. I couldn't give a damn about finding your family; that's Weasley's obsession, not mine." He sat on the edge of the bed, his black robes almost touching Emma's exposed arm. Harry watched as he stared at his hands. "Ginny ruined me forever, you know?"   
  
This time, Harry did frown. "Ruined."   
  
"I didn't even realize...I loved her until she was gone."   
  
"You loved Ginny." Harry tried to say it in a way that wouldn't give away his utter shock at the admission, but it was difficult. Draco had loved Ginny? He hadn't even ever seen them have a conversation that didn't include insults.   
  
"And I know what you think," Draco continued. "What you died thinking. That I somehow knew what could happen to her." He lifted his head to stare at the wall. "Well, I didn't. My father knew...but he neglected to share the details with me. He had known ever since the day he forced the diary on her. He knew it would tie her to Lord...to Voldemort. He got off on the idea of one of Arthur Weasley's runts being spiritually connected to everything he stood against."   
  
A long moment passed as Harry absorbed this. "If you had known, would you have warned us? Would you have tried to save her life?"   
  
"I would have done anything," Draco whispered. "Anything to keep her alive." He looked back down. "But I only found out...the day she died. When Voldemort's life-force was threatened, he drew life from the souls linked to him. I *was* coming...to tell her. But I didn't know the damn Gryffindor password and the bloody fat bitch wouldn't let me in without it!!" He closed his bloodshot grey eyes. "You carried her out into the hallway, but she was already dead. I was hiding behind a statue. I hated you more than I ever had before...and that's saying something...because you got to hold her. And I never would again."   
  
"Ginny loved you?" It was a question, but it came out like a statement. Harry thought he caught the gleam of a tear on Draco's cheek, but when he blinked, it was gone.   
  
The man lifted his shoulders. "We were young. We fooled around. I liked the reputation I got around my House for being able to get any girl, even a younger Gryffindor. She liked the danger of doing something wicked, something that might get your attention. I just don't think we realized...that it grew into something more. Or maybe she never did. Maybe it was just me." After a second, Draco stood up. "So, I'm here in the dark, in a wreck of a house, spilling my guts to the ghost of the great Harry Potter, because I miss her. And there's nowhere else for me to go when I feel this way."   
  
"Ron," Harry said.  
  
Draco laughed. "Weasley? I doubt he even remembers he had a sister, much less mourns her death. Just a necessary casualty in his Lord and Master's rise to power. You should know that, Potter. Or do you only spy on the living people who didn't betray you?"   
  
"You do not follow the same master?"  
  
"Not when his back is turned," Draco muttered.   
  
Harry paused. "There is atonement, Draco Malfoy. And it's for the living as well as the dead."   
  
"Atonement?" he repeated. "What are you babbling about?"   
  
"Turn away from the Dark and align yourself with the fight for good. If you truly feel remorse for Ginny Weasley, this is your chance for forgiveness."   
  
Draco shook his head. "Dying only made you dumber, Potter. Do you think I'm going to join a rag-tag group of mostly Mudblooded wizards who are all going to die soon? Ginny's been dead for almost twenty-five years. I don't feel that bloody sorry anymore."   
  
"What are you...talking about?"   
  
"I might hate the bastard, but I'm smart enough to stay in his graces," Draco went on. "When he finds your friends...well, you couldn't pay me enough Galleons to be on the wrong side of that battle." He moved towards Harry. "Weasley's finished his Truth Serum for his mother; he'll have his bloody Secret-Keeper soon. If you're lonely wherever you are, Potter, you won't be for long." He reached out a hand to grasp Harry's shoulder in mock comfort. "They'll all be with you..." His fingers made solid contact with Harry's robes; Draco jumped back as though he had touched pure fire. "You're solid!"  
  
Harry stepped back, bumping into the pink wall. "Your mind plays tricks on you, Draco Malfoy," he said, the words not even convincing to his own ears.   
  
"You're not a ghost!" Draco accused him. "You're real..."  
  
"You're mad."   
  
The other man moved for the door. "Perhaps. But not about this." A horrible smile made his lips curve. "Won't Voldemort be excited? You know...he's always said that the only bad thing about killing you was that it was over too quickly. Now it seems like he might get his chance to..."   
  
He never got to finish his thought. Harry's fist flew out from his robes, slamming into Draco's nose with the force of the Hogwarts Express. Cartilage crunched, skin broke, blood spattered. The punch knocked the breath out of the man for a moment, rendering him unconscious. He crumpled to the floor, a huge lump of black cloth and sliver-blonde hair.   
  
Harry tried to relax his finger, but they were stiff and numb. With Draco out of the way for the moment, he hauled Emma out from under her bed. She clutched his cloak in her hand. "Dad! What happened?" Right then, she caught a glimpse of Draco's body. "Oh my god..."   
  
"Come on! You heard everything. We have to get going; there's no more time to waste." Harry kept holding his daughter's hand as they prepared to Disapparate. There would be no more discussions about the logistics of sneaking into Hogwarts; there would only be action. Because if they failed, Voldemort would win. Again.   
  
And any past, present or future that Harry might have had would be gone forever.  
  
****  
  
To Be Continued 


	8. Nice guys finish last

Disclaimer: The characters and the world they live in do not belong to yours truly.  
  
Author's Notes: Sorry it took awhile to get this out. I got a job! A real, grown-up, using my degree kind of job as a legal editor. Basically, I have no time to myself anymore. Expect updates to be much slower than usual at least until I can get into my new schedule. Thank you for all the great reviews though!!  
  
On a side note, as much as I adore Ginny and the G/D pairing, I think that by going in depth into her death (which I only did because people were confused), I might have misled some people into believing that I'm heading a certain direction with this story. I usually don't say anything like this about my stories while they're in progress because I don't like to close any doors, but I will say, just so there won't be too much disappointment later on, there's not a real good chance that Ginny will be coming back, time-travel notwithstanding. Sorry, guys. Good people die fighting the fight. It's just life:( That being said, I hope you keep reading anyway, cause I promise you a good story!  
  
****  
  
Until Such A Time  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
****  
  
"Oh, thank god you're all right!!" After hearing everything that had happened with Draco Malfoy in Emma's bedroom, Hermione folded her daughter up in her arms and squeezed as hard as she could. "If anything had happened to you..."  
  
"I was never in any danger, Mum," Emma assured her. "Dad was completely in control; he had that guy confessing all these deep secrets. He was very cool."   
  
Hermione smiled into her daughter's hair. "Cool? Yes...your dad is cool." She met Harry's eyes. "I should have known you'd be fine with him. No matter what."   
  
"Don't make me out to be more than I am, Hermione. I let Draco see me. And I left him unconscious without even trying a Memory Charm." Harry rubbed his eyes. "But, I can't change any of that now. The only thing that matters is getting into Hogwarts and finding Molly Weasley before Ron has a chance to use the Serum on her."   
  
"I can't believe he'd do that to Mum," Percy said, staring at the camp fire. "Forcing a Truth Serum down her throat...it's abombinable."   
  
Charlie poked his younger brother's foot with his own. "Ron sold out to Voldemort for a pair of Spanish tits. Believe it."   
  
"Do you have to be so crude?" Lavender asked the oldest living Weasley sibling.   
  
"I don't think of it as crude, I think of it as the whole truth without any sugarcoating."   
  
Lupin stopped the fight before it could even begin. "Hermione's come up with a plan, a good one. We shouldn't have too much difficulty getting into the main part of the castle. Harry...any thoughts on where they might be keeping her?"  
  
"The dungeons, maybe. The astronomy tower? Dumbledore's old office? How the bloody hell should I know?" Harry snapped. "There are rooms in that castle that only come out in the morning. There are chambers that get hidden for a thousand years. She could be anywhere!"  
  
A moment passed after his outburst. "Are you all right, Harry?" Hermione ventured to ask, putting a hand on his arm.   
  
He let his shoulders relax. "I'm sorry. I'm just...getting a headache."   
  
"You've been Apparating too much," Lupin said. "Perhaps you should stay here..."  
  
"No."  
  
"It's not a terrible idea, Harry," Hermone said, softly. "You could stay with everyone...and Emma, keep her safe and rest yourself. Time-travel and too much Apparating...it's a wonder you're still..."  
  
"I said 'no'." Harry looked at her.   
  
Emma kicked a pebble with her shoe. "Don't make him, Mum. I'll be fine; I don't need a babysitter."   
  
"Emma will be fine. Plenty of us are staying," Percy reminded Hermione.   
  
"I'll keep a special eye on her," Lavender volunteered. Neville squeezed her hand and she laid her cheek on his shoulder.   
  
The young girl scowled, turned on her heel and started off in search of her books. Hermione watched her daughter flounce off, a worried frown on her own face. Lupin smiled at her, reassuringly. "She'll be in good hands."   
  
Hermione's frown all but disappeared. Harry had to look away; he cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "Just who is going?"   
  
"I am." Charlie stood up and rubbed his weathered hands together vigorously. "Never thought I'd get to go back to school."   
  
"I only hoped I wouldn't," Fred snickered. George nodded his whole-hearted agreement.   
  
"Only the essential personnel," Seamus answered Harry's question. "You won't have to babysit anyone tonight, mate."  
  
Hermione pointed to each person as she spoke their name. "Charlie, Fred, George, Remus, myself...and you."   
  
George looked sheepish for a rare instant. "I tried to get enough people together to mount a really wicked attack. But...there aren't many people left."  
  
"You did your best," Lupin said. "The cloak will cover all of us, but it's imperative that we not let any toes poke out from under it or let ourselves be heard by anyone. We're playing on what Voldemort considers his territory; I for one want to get in, get Molly and get out. Anything more than that risks lives."  
  
"Wouldn't it be easier if I went alone?" Harry asked. It wasn't that he felt like being the devil's advocate; he was just finding it very hard to go along with everything his old mentor came up with, knowing how the man looked at his wife. There was something there...and he was fairly certain he didn't want to know what it was. That didn't mean, however, that he could force himself to ignore it.   
  
Hermione approached him, placing a soft hand on his shoulder. "Harry...I say this only because I love you. But the last time you faced Voldemort alone...*was* the last time."   
  
"You think I can't do it?" Youthful resentment flashed in the dark centers of his eyes.   
  
"I think that I can't bury you twice."   
  
It was possible to hear a single drop of water hitting the loch from a dripping stalagtite in the silence that followed. Finally, Harry let himself relax. His head was pounding too hard. And there were too many old, but still open wounds peeking through his wife's composure. He wouldn't be the cause of any fresh ones.   
  
Harry tore his gaze away from Hermione and turned a much harder one on Remus Lupin. "Lead the way."   
  
****  
****  
  
She hadn't been able to sleep all night. Not only was the baby kicking her worse than ever, apparently as aware of her father's absence as Hermione herself was, but horrible images of what might be happening to Harry had haunted her dreams. If not for her huge stomach, she would have tossed and turned until dawn.   
  
As it was, she found herself awake and dressed and standing in front of Ron's home just after dawn with a huge plate of freshly baked cinnamon rolls in her hands. True, Ron was not a fan of her cooking, but she had never seen him turn down a sweet in all the years she had known him.   
  
Plus, she had to do something. She had to get out of the house, walk around a bit, anything to keep her mind occupied. Hermione balanced the plate with the help of her round belly and knocked on the door.   
  
It took a few minutes, but finally, the door opened. But it wasn't Ron who greeted her. Serafina, his current fling, answered wearing only one of the sweaters Mrs. Weasley had knitted for her son. Apparently, it was one she had made for Ron when he was much younger; the 'R' worked into the wool was stretched tight across Serafina's breasts and the hem only barely skimmed the tops of her thighs.   
  
Hermione blinked. "Good morning. Um...buenos dias, I mean." The other woman ran a hand through her tousled, streaked locks and yawned. "Is Ron up?"  
  
"He is taking the shower."   
  
"Oh, I see." There was a pause. "May I come in and wait for him?"  
  
Serafina shrugged and stepped aside to let her in. "Sit if you care." She half-heartedly gestured to a sofa cluttered with old newspapers, dirty clothes and dishes.   
  
"It's all right. The baby gets restless if I sit too much." Several painfully long moments ticked by. Hermione set the plate of rolls onto a corner of the coffee table that was relatively clean. "Um...has Ron heard anything? About Harry?"   
  
"Ron has been...how do you say...?"  
  
*Shagging?* Hermione thought. "Occupied?"   
  
"Si. Occupied." Serafina smiled for the first time, reminding her of the nice young girl Ron had brought to dinner only a few days earlier. But then she stretched like a well-fed sex kitten. "He is very much a man."   
  
Nausea that she couldn't attribute to her pregnancy welled up in Hermione's stomach. "I'll take your word for it. So...no one's stopped by from the Ministry? No owls?"   
  
"Hermione..." Ron entered the living room in his bathrobe, a wet towel hung around his neck. "I told you I'd come by to see you, not the other way around."  
  
"Well, I was in the neighborhood..." She picked up the plate. "I brought breakfast."  
  
He moved towards her and took her arm. "You should go home. Harry would kill me if he knew I was letting you walk around by yourself in your condition."   
  
"I'm pregnant, Ron, not terminally ill. And let's stop to deal with this 'letting' me walk around thing. Since when does anyone 'let' me do anything? I'm a grown woman and I decide what I..."  
  
Ron cut her off. "Look, I haven't heard anything, okay? Harry's dropped off the bloody planet and until he decides to surface again, there's not a damn thing either of us can do. Just go home, put your feet up and try not to send yourself into early labor."   
  
"Ron." Hermione stared at him with blank confusion. "What's wrong with you?"   
  
"You come over here uninvited at the crack of dawn looking like hell and you ask *me* what's wrong?" Serafina approached him from behind and slid her arms around his stomach. "Sorry if I can't manage to get all worried about Harry. He has a history of going off and doing stuff on his own without consulting us and he always winds up playing the hero. You're the one who married him; aren't you used to him by now?"  
  
She took a step back. "I can't believe what you're...Ron? Why are you...being like this?"   
  
"Being like what?"   
  
"Like..." Her eyes clouded over. "...an insensitive bastard!"  
  
Serafina's head peeked up over his shoulder. "I wish to go back to bed..." She nipped at his ear with strong, white teeth.   
  
Ron's eyelids fluttered. When they finally opened again, he leveled his old friend with the ice of his stare. "The great Harry Potter, wherever he might be, is doing just fine without us. Go home, Hermione. And get used to coming in second. The only person who's important to Harry...is Harry." He turned around and hauled his girlfriend against his body; his hands gripped her underneath the wool of his sweater. "If you'll excuse us, Mrs. Potter."   
  
Hermione listened to Serafina's sexy laughter as it trailed down the hallway and back towards Ron's bedroom. She remained standing in that same spot for a long time, her only motions were to rub her swollen belly, as though soothing away Ron's completely uncharacteristic words from her baby's ears. Her cheeks were wet.   
  
She left the cinnamon rolls on the table and fled the tiny house that she and Harry had helped their friend move into only months earlier. She needed Harry. There was something very wrong with Ron, far worse than mere jealousy. If only Harry were there...  
  
The baby kicked her hard, but she barely felt it.   
  
****   
****  
  
"Percy?"  
  
"Don't ask it, Emma."   
  
"How long has it..."  
  
He snapped his book shut and gave the teenager a long look. "It's been an hour and a half. When you last asked, it was an hour and twenty-five minutes. Next time you want to know, they will have been gone for a hour and thirty-five minutes. Is that all? I'd like to finish this book sometime this year."  
  
Emma tilted her head to one side and studied the older man. "Were you this much of a fuddy-duddy when you were my age?"   
  
"More," Seamus called out from across the camp. When he caught Percy's glare, he laughed and shrugged. "Sorry, mate. You docked points from our own House because I threw one ear of corn at the Slytherin's table. I haven't forgotten."  
  
Percy flipped his book open and studiously ignored them both. With a sigh, Emma glanced down at her own book. She was so close to finding out a way to send her father back to his proper time. So close, in fact, that she imagined it would only take a few more pages of reading. She had the time, the resources...what she lacked was the heart.   
  
She didn't want him to leave.  
  
Harry Potter was everything she had always been told he had been. Not by her mother, of course, but by everyone else who hadn't wanted her to grow up not knowing about the amazing man who had been her father. Handsome. Smart. Brave. Cool. Powerful.   
  
None of that really mattered. What she had latched onto was how loving he had apparently been. Emma could remember all of the nights she would lay awake long past her bedtime, imagining that when she woke up in the morning, he would be at the breakfast table eating bacon and toast and just waiting to give her a kiss on the forehead. Every morning she would vault into the kitchen, just in case. But the table was always empty. And she'd cry, once again, for the man she had never known.   
  
Lying on her stomach, she rested her head on one outstretched arm. It was monsterously selfish, but she wasn't ready to let him go just yet. No one understood, how could they? With all of their memories of him, they could afford to think about the big picture. All Emma could think about was how she'd give anything, do anything, be anyone he wanted her to be...if only she could hear her father say he loved her.   
  
She flipped a page without reading it. No matter how old she got, some part of her would always be six years old, wishing on stars for her daddy.   
  
"Stars," she said outloud. Emma's head shot up. "That's it!!"   
  
With a burst of intellectual energy, an inevitable side-effect of having grown up under her mother's tutelage, Emma frantically pawed through her book until she landed on a certain page. Her eyes whipped back and forth like a tennis ball as she read. "Yes...yes! Of course! Why didn't I think of it on my own?"   
  
She almost stopped reading; the answer was in her hand whether she liked it or not. But something compelled her to keep going, reading further into the section on time-travel theories. As quickly as her pretty face had lit up, it fell. "Oh no...no..." Emma put her hand over her mouth. "I didn't know," she whispered to no one in particular. "I didn't know he could..."   
  
Forcing herself to swallow most of her fear, Emma closed her book, carefully placed it in her waterproof jacket and looked at the camp. Everyone was occupied either reading or cooking a late breakfast. Most importantly, no one was keeping their promised "close eye" on her.   
  
With grace and a little bit of luck, Emma snuck down to the water's edge, conjured up the Bubble-Head charm and slipped under the water without so much as a splash. As she carefully kicked for the antechamber and the loch beyond it, she felt a pang of guilt. Everyone would be sick with worry. Her mother...and possibly her father, would have good reason to kill her. But she had to get there. She had to fix what she had set in motion...before it killed the one person she'd do anything to keep alive.   
  
It looked like she would finally get to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But it wouldn't be to further her education. It would be correct her own unforgivable mistake.   
  
It would be to save her father's life.  
  
****  
  
To Be Continued 


	9. A brave new world

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and company do not belong to me in any way shape or form.   
  
Author's Notes: I know it's been like a year since I updated this story and for that, I apologize heartily. I was watching the first movie on ABC tonight and got inspired, so I called up the file on my laptop and finished this chapter. I hope it hasn't been so long that no one's interested anymore. Thanks for reading!!! Take care until next time...which with all the inspiration around the new movie, hopefully won't be another year!

  
  
Until Such A Time  
  
by Kristen Elizabeth   
  
Hermione dreamed of Harry sleeping. She saw him in the first bed they had shared, his hair bleeding ink onto the pure white pillow. There, she had been free to wrap herself around him in a way that hadn't been possible at Hogwarts, even in the most remote of corners. He hadn't wanted to take her like that. The Astronomy Tower or the prefects bathroom to which she had access, or even the Room of Requirement might have been good enough for any other hormone-driven couple, but Harry insisted on waiting until they could create the perfect moment. A Muggle inn, candles, rose petals...no one had ever gone to so much trouble for her.   
  
He had caressed her with butterfly wings for fingers, barely grazing the surface of her skin as though it were far too delicate for his clumsy touch. And true, his hands had shaken slightly as he fumbled to take off his glasses. But there had been wonder in his green stare, absolute amazement that they were finally alone and able to love like this.   
  
It hadn't been perfect, and yet, it had. She wouldn't find what Harry felt for awhile, through no fault of his own, but all the same it had been, in a word, magical. He had shown her with patience and whispered apologies, slow strokes and soft kisses that he loved her and it wasn't just their friend's expectations, or the passing lust of being seventeen that brought them together. When it was over and she was holding onto his sweat-kissed body waiting for him to catch his breath, she'd said it out loud for the first time, the words she had been holding in her heart for so long.   
  
"I love you, Harry."   
  
Hermione dreamed of Harry sleeping. And woke up alone.   
  
Someone was pounding the front door of the cottage. She struggled to get off the couch, the huge mound of her stomach making it extremely difficult. She was wide awake now, jarred from her nap, but there were leftover tears on her cheeks.   
  
Reaching the door a minute later, she grasped the heavy iron handle. "Harry?" she said, pulling it open.   
  
"No, I'm sorry, Hermione." Remus Lupin stood on the stoop, looking far more haggard than what was usual for him. "It's only me."  
  
Her shoulders slumped; she couldn't stop them. "Have you...have you heard...anything about..."  
  
"I received an owl from the Ministry this morning," her former teacher replied. "I came straight away." He paused. "I take it there's been no word?"  
  
Hermione shook her head, still unaware of her flowing tears. "It's...really wonderful to see you. Please...come in."   
  
He closed the door behind them and watched Hermione waddle her way back to the couch on which she had apparently been napping in the middle of the day. "You look really..."  
  
"Fat," she sighed, massaging her forehead.   
  
"I was going to say 'well.' You hadn't even begun to show the last time I saw you." Lupin removed his cloak and folded it over his arm. "But Harry's letters have kept me up to date."  
  
Hermione lowered herself back down onto the couch. "I've never seen him more excited about anything that didn't involve broomsticks and snitches." She touched her belly. "He's completely in love with this baby..." Her face twisted in pure agony. "And now...he might not even be here when she's born."  
  
"He'll be here," Lupin said quickly. "Hermione, the Ministry's got absolutely everyone they can on this. There's not a rock in the whole of Britain that they'll leave unturned. You know that."   
  
She covered her mouth with her hand for a moment. "Here's what I know. The facts. And you know me...I stick to the facts." After drawing in a shaky breath, she continued. "My husband's been missing for nearly a day now, having disappeared right in front of our best friend's eyes. He's never, ever, even in the worst of assignments, gone this long without contacting me. But so far, no one's heard a word from him. And now..." Hermione looked away. "That best friend of ours..." She stopped.   
  
"What about Ron?"   
  
"I've known him to be jealous. I've known him to be...block-headed and stubborn and even vengeful. But I have never known him to be deliberately cruel. I didn't even know he had it in him!" Hermione gave Lupin a quick recap of her earlier encounter with Ron and Serafina. "It froze my blood," she finished, her voice flat. "It was like all the worst parts of him just suddenly jumped to the surface. And in that moment, he couldn't give a damn about me or Harry or anything...except shagging his latest..." Hermione made herself stop again. "Well, you supply your own word there."   
  
Lupin frowned. "Ron's acting strangely. Ron was the only witness to Harry's disappearance...."  
  
"Are you hinting at...?" She shook her head. "No. That's impossible. Ron might slip into whiny jerk-mode every now and then, but he loves Harry like a brother. He couldn't ever hurt him. It's unthinkable." Hermione looked over at the older man and saw his arched eyebrow. "Stop it! Ron is a good man. His brain is just getting swamped with sex. He'll snap out of it and he'll feel massively guilty for everything he said."  
  
"Look, Hermione." He knelt in front of her and reached for one pale hand. "I'm merely making the suggestion. Harry has stood up against Voldemort and won. He's done things wizards twice his age could never accomplish. What's the one thing that could catch him off guard and leave him vulnerable?" When she didn't reply, he answered his own question. "Betrayal, Hermione. Back-stabbing, dime-novel double-crossing from the one person he'd rather die than suspect. Think about it."  
  
She studied him for a long minute, her brown eyes going back and forth between his. "Ron might have issues and complexes, but he's still one of the best friends I've ever had. He stood next to Harry on our wedding day; he'll be godfather to our child. I love him. Harry loves him. He loves us."   
  
"You can't close yourself off to any possible explanations. Ron is a powerful wizard; if something had tried to take Harry, something that even he couldn't fight off, don't you think that their combined powers would have been enough to stave off the attack?"  
  
Hermione shook her head, adamantly refusing to acknowledge any truth in his words. "You'll see. When Harry gets back...if Harry gets...back. Oh god..." She wrapped her arms around her unborn child. "He has to come back. He has to be safe. I don't...want to live my life without him."   
  
Lupin hesitated before putting an awkward arm around her. "He's going to be fine. If he can't get out of whatever jam he's been put in by himself, we'll find him and bring him back to you." It sounded like he wanted to say more, but he just patted her back reassuringly.   
  
She was too preoccupied to even notice. "He's been worried about you. Your letters come so sporadically."  
  
"I've been abroad," he replied. "Southern France. There's...activity there that needed investigation."   
  
"Activity?" Hermione straightened her back. "What does that mean?"  
  
Lupin lowered his head. "Several villages in that part of France...they claim to have seen..."  
  
"Seen what?"  
  
"The Mark, Hermione. The thing of it is...it wasn't only wizards who claim to have seen it in the sky." He looked back at her. "Muggles made reports; that got the Ministry's attention. The usual stories about UFO's didn't work; we even gave them a few crop circles to keep the French authorities busy, but the Muggles I spoke to were very clear. They drew out the Mark on paper for me. Tell me...how could they have done that if they hadn't seen it?"  
  
Scalding tears wet her eyes. "Of course he still has followers. That's the basis of Harry's job...finding them. Most of them fled to the continent. France seems as good a place as any for a Draco Malfoy or whomever to settle down. Any one of them could have..."  
  
"A full Mark. It's not something they take lightly. It's a herald. Something is going to happen." He shook his shaggy head. "I just don't know what yet. All I know is...this is the worst time to lose our greatest trump card."  
  
Fear crackled in Hermione's reply. "That can't be all Harry is to you and the Ministry," she snapped.   
  
"Of course not. That came out wrong. What I meant was..."   
  
But she was on a roll...and her hormones weren't helping. "From the time he was eleven years old, everyone's just sort of kicked back and expected the legendary boy to take care of whatever situation they created before he was even born! Well, now he needs your help. He doesn't need you to sit here accusing his best friend and...and..." Hermione's words tore off as pain stabbed her lower abdomen.   
  
Lupin frowned. "Are you all right? Is something the matter with..."  
  
"I'm fine." She sucked in a breath and blew it out slowly. "I didn't mean to get so worked up. I understand that you're doing your best. And that you only have Harry's best interest at heart."  
  
"I have ever since he was born," the older man said softly. "Are you certain you're all right?"  
  
"You're just going to have to trust me on this one. Unless you're an expert on what carrying around a seven pound baby is supposed to feel like."   
  
He managed a smile. "Can't say that I have any idea."   
  
Hermione nodded tightly. "I think I just need to lie down for awhile."  
  
"I understand." Lupin stood up and watched her rearrange herself on the sofa. "If there's anything you need..."  
  
"We have a telephone. Worst case scenario, Muggles can deliver babies just as well as medi-wizards can. Besides...there's absolutely no way this child is being born without Harry here." Her words were determined and spoken with forced joviality. "He got me into this...he's going to help get me out of it." Lupin continued to hesitate until she gave him a look. "Please...I need to know someone I trust is out there looking for him."   
  
Lupin nodded. "Just rest, Hermione. Harry will be back soon."   
  
She waited until she heard the front door shut before she released another, much deeper breath. "Baby..." she whispered to her stomach. "Not yet. Please."   
  
Emma had once seen an old map of Hogsmeade in one of her mother's books, so when she Apparated into a hidden alleyway, she had a pretty good idea of where she was within the tiny village. She emerged into the mid-morning light, squinting slightly. When her eyes adjusted, she took her first good look at the place her mother had once described as the most hodgepodge little city in the world.   
  
She found she had to agree with her mother's assessment. Hogsmeade was a shambly place, a bit dodgy, as Hagrid mostly likely would have said. But underneath the disrepair, she could tell that it had probably once been a very charming village, the kind of place where she could imagine her mother and her father...and certain other friends they had once had whom she didn't like to name...enjoying butterbeer together, swapping stories and laughing.  
  
A man brushed her arm, charging past her as if she wasn't even there. He barreled across the cobblestone street and disappeared into a pub that bore the name, The Hog's Head. Emma sucked in and released a huge breath. She was secreted to the naked eye even here, so close to Hogwarts.   
  
Speaking of Hogwarts, now that she was so close, she realized she really had no idea how to get to the castle. It wasn't as though there was a guidebook she could flip through, and even after a dozen reads of Hermione's favorite book, she wasn't entirely sure she'd even be able to see Hogwarts if she were standing in front of its port trellis.   
  
Emma turned around in circles, searching for something, anything, until she spotted a group of kids who appeared to be only a year or two younger than she emerging from one shop. Dressed in matching robes, they were laughing as they examined the contents of their shopping bags, comparing purchases and making jokes. A lump rose up in her throat and refused to go down. She'd never had any friends. At least, none who were anywhere near her own age. None of the Order members had ever had children; Emma had always presumed that they had no desire to bring children into such a horrible world. She couldn't blame them. There had been occasions where she wished she hadn't been brought into it either.   
  
But it meant that she'd never known what it was like to laugh with a friend or a group of friends like the kids in front of her did so freely and naturally.   
  
Shaking her hair away from her face, Emma took a breath and jogged over to the group, following them as they started down the cobblestone street. Not one of them noticed her trailing behind...all the way across the rocky plains, around the lake and up to the castle gates.   
  
"So," Emma whispered, staring up at the grand stone turrets. "This is Hogwarts." Kids streamed by her, completely unaware of her presence. "It's about time I got here."   
  
With another great, calming breath, she walked forward, crossing the threshold into everything that she'd been denied for her whole life.   
  
As Emma entered Hogwarts, her parents, along with the rag-tag group of crusaders, apparated onto the abandoned Quidditch pitch. The once immaculately trimmed green field was now overgrown with brown weeds and tall grasses; it looked nothing like the beloved place that had seen some of the happiest moments of his childhood.   
  
"I see Voldemort holds no love of sport," Harry observed, dryly.   
  
"There aren't enough children to make up proper teams, I'd presume." Lupin shielded his eyes from the midday sun. "Besides, even if he allows Houses other than Slytherin anymore, it's doubtful he'd let them win. What would be the point?"  
  
Harry swallowed. "I don't know. I suppose I had hoped there would be something in this world that might have stayed the same." Hermione's hand slipped into his, squeezing gently. He squeezed back, reflexively. "Let's get started, shall we?"  
  
His father's cloak covered them all, but they soon found it difficult to move in unison across the pitch. Someone he was fairly certain was George kept stepping on the heel of his shoe, although every time Harry turned around to tell him to be careful, George inevitably pointed to his brother. Somehow, they made it to the outskirts of the castle, though not without a few sore toes. He realized he was still holding Hermione's hand; both of their palms were damp with cold perspiration. He pulled away, wiping his hand on his pants leg.   
  
Charlie was first to ask the question they were all thinking. "Can we go in there?"  
  
"Doesn't matter if we can," Lupin told him.   
  
"We're going to," Harry finished up. He took a step forward, propelling them all. "Leave your second thoughts here."  
  
There weren't enough ugly words in the English language to describe the desecration that had been inflicted upon Hogwarts. The hallways that had seen them grow from children into adults were now shadowed with hate, corrupted by horror. Harry's blood ran cold in his veins, and his forehead throbbed. Voldemort. He was close, too close.   
  
Hermione glanced at him. "You can feel him, can't you?"  
  
"I feel him." Harry looked up through the translucent material of the cloak. "He's everywhere." His disembodied stare dropped back to meet Hermione's worried eyes. "He knows I'm here."  
  
Her lip trembled. "You're still so connected to him."   
  
"I always will be." He lowered his voice when he noticed Lupin trying not to listen. "I have to get away from you. He'll be coming for me...and I can't let him find you. Any of you."   
  
"But Harry..."  
  
His hand spanned the small of her back even as they kept walking. "I'll lead him away from you; I know you can find Molly. When you do, I want you to get out of here. Get back to Emma. Don't leave her alone."  
  
"And what do you intend to do? Fight him again? Die again?!"   
  
George and Fred exchanged looks. Lupin cleared his throat. Charlie watched with unashamed interest.   
  
"Hermione, this is something I have to do. I didn't win in your past, and I might not be able to win in my future, but this has to be the present for now. And if I don't at least try to save you, then all of this was for nothing!" They all came to a halt in the middle of the empty hallway. "You're my wife. Emma is my daughter. I would die over and over to protect you both."  
  
Tears flooded her eyes. "I don't want you to. I want you to..." She stopped short. "I'm sorry. I'm being selfish." She turned away. "Go. We'll find Molly."   
  
Harry hesitated before lifting the side of the cloak closest to him. He turned back around and pulled Hermione into a deep kiss.   
  
George snickered softly. "Now there's the Potters we remember."   
  
Hermione's eyelids fluttered as he pulled away. Her heart couldn't take another one of his kisses; it was so very close to breaking. "Be careful," she implored him.   
  
He nodded. And then, all too quickly, he was outside the secure invisibility of the cloak. She watched him disappear into the menacing shadows.   
  
Lupin put his hand on her arm. "Come on. We haven't got much time, and there's a lot of corners to explore."   
  
It was the hardest thing he'd ever done, leaving Hermione behind, but he comforted himself with the knowledge that it was entirely for her own good. He hadn't told her the whole truth. It wasn't just that he sensed Voldemort was aware of him. He could actually feel his cold eyes watching him. And as soon as he had realized Voldemort's power over his new domain, Harry had known that it was imperative that he break off immediately and go out on his own.   
  
The castle was no longer a home for any wizard or witch who wished to learn. It was now a desolate place for the children of traitors. The offspring of the wicked. The ones who had seen the power of the Dark Lord, but rather than stand against him, had chosen to stand with him. As Harry moved through the castle, he couldn't help but remember better days. The memories piled up; every turn he took brought back a new one. That was the girls bathroom where he and Ron had saved Hermione from a troll...that was the corridor that led to Lupin's office while he was still teaching at the school...that was the corner where he and Hermione had shared their first innocent kiss.   
  
Harry stopped in front of a battered portrait. The canvas had long since been torn to shreds, but he knew that gilded frame anywhere. It was the entrance into the first place he'd ever called home. The Gryffindor common room. Somehow, in the midst of his memories, his feet had led him to Gryffindor Tower.   
  
There was no point in trying to figure out what had happened to the room's guardian; when the lady in the pink dress had fled...or been forced away, she'd left the door open just a bit. Harry had no problem slipping inside.   
  
It was a disaster of epic proportions. The warm couches upon which he'd fallen asleep during many forced study sessions with Hermione had been broken, the fabric ripped, the stuffing spilling out. The fireplace that had warmed them through many winter nights was cold and apparently hadn't bit lit for many years. The once proud gold and garnet banners of the Gryffindor House that had watched over them all lay in tattered heaps on the floor. A thick layer of dust covered everything he'd loved so much.  
  
He blinked back a sudden smattering of hot tears and steeled himself against the anger and sorrow that threatened to bubble over in his breast. Someone would pay for this. There would be justice.   
  
On quiet feet, Harry started up the stairs to the boy's dormitory. He wasn't sure what he was doing; if Voldemort sent his minions out for him, he'd be back into a corner in the tower. But he had the sudden desire to see his old room. As quickly as he could, he ascended to the proper flight. This door was closed, but not locked. He opened it, wincing at the squeak of the rusty hinges.   
  
But nothing prepared him for the shock of what lay inside.   
  
She was tied up to a chair, blindfolded and gagged, but positioned close to the central furnace for warmth in the chilly stone room. The mixture of hatred and love told him that only one person had been responsible for placing Molly Weasley here. Her beloved youngest son.   
  
"Molly." Harry moved to her without thinking and immediately lowered her blindfold. Ron's mother blinked at the sudden light. "Don't be startled. It's me...Harry Potter."   
  
Once he'd removed the gag, Molly opened her eyes. "Harry?" Confusion and fear colored her face. "I don't...what are you..." He started working on her ropes. "You can't be here. You're dead!"  
  
Harry freed her hands, frowning deeply at the bruises on her wrists. Ron's mother should have been sitting in front of a warm fire in the Burrow, surrounded by grandchildren as she knitted them all matching sweaters. Not here in this hell. "No time for explanations. We have to get you out of here before Ron..."  
  
Her shoulders, heavy with age, shook at his name. "Ron...he's the one who...my little boy..." She was fighting with her tears, but losing to them. "Why?! Why did he do this?"   
  
"I don't know, Molly." Harry draped her plump arm over his shoulders. "I wish I could understand. But right now, it's time to go. Charlie, Fred and George are here. We're going..."  
  
"Nowhere."   
  
Still supporting Molly, Harry turned to confront the voice. He didn't have to look to know who it was, though.   
  
"Ron," he said, as calmly as possible.   
  
"Harry." A twisted grin spread across his former best friend's freckled face. "I was hoping we'd bump into each other."   
  
To Be Continued 


	10. Lay down my life

Disclaimer: Characters belong to a very talented, very rich woman. I am not her.  
  
Author's Notes: Told ya it wouldn't be a year until the next update! I was so utterly pleased to see that people still care about my little tale. Thank you so much for the sweet responses. Enjoy this chapter...for I am the Queen of the Cliffhanger. Or at least the Princess.   
  
  
  
Until Such A Time  
  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
  
  
Emma walked the halls of Hogwarts like one of its ghosts.   
  
She had no idea where she was within the maze of cold, stone corridors and heavy oak doors, but she pressed on, turning corners when she felt like it and ducking into rooms that were already open, as not to run the risk of arousing anyone's suspicions.   
  
Regret blossomed in the center of her chest, growing stronger with every passing minute. She ought to know this place like she knew her own house. She should have gotten to see it for the first time from a tiny boat on the lake. She should have been sorted by the Sorting Hat. She should have been taught how to fly a broom in the courtyard. She should have stressed over her exams, kissed boys, laughed with her girlfriends, mixed potions and read letters from her parents all within these walls.   
  
So many "should haves." Rounding yet another corner, Emma shook her head. What was the use of lamenting what should have been? It wouldn't change anything. If anything was going to change, she'd already set the wheels in motion.   
  
Now she just needed to fix her big mistake.   
  
Emma was so lost in her thoughts that she nearly fell straight down a long flight of very hard-looking steps. She caught herself just in time, and clung to the wall until her heart stopped racing.   
  
"Mum always said this place kept a body on their toes," she whispered to herself. She was about to turn around and continue on her way, but curiosity suddenly got the best of her. Where did the stairs lead? They disappeared a black void, yet she did not feel any apprehension as she started down.   
  
Darkness enveloped her. She was fairly dying to whip out her wand and call up some light, but she just kept going, feeling her way down each step and keeping one hand out in front of herself in case she reached a door or something.   
  
Her fingers touched wood after what seemed like hours, and she fumbled around for a minute until she found the iron handle. To her great surprise, it was not locked. Emma pulled it open, wincing at the squeak of the rusty hinges.   
  
There was a candle lit in the center of the room and with its light she was able to make out floor to ceiling shelves that wound all the way around the circular area, filled with bottles of all shapes and sizes. From the dust, she could tell that none of them had been touched in years. Potion ingredients.   
  
Almost falling down the stairs had proven to be quite useful.   
  
The candle itself was perched upon a writing desk at which a man in black robes sat, scribbling on a piece of parchment. His back was to the door, but he whipped around when she entered. Her entire body froze.   
  
"Who's there?" He searched the darkness with keen eyes, a stark contrast to his unkempt appearance. His hair might have been black once, but now it was shot through with so much grey that there was only a hint of its true color left. Emma wanted to shudder at his drooping wrinkles and hunched back. "Do you know what happens to students who venture down here?"   
  
She said nothing, but held her breath when he got up and shuffled over to the door.   
  
"I can sense you," the man said plainly. "Your damnable cloak can't hide you this time, Potter."   
  
Emma blinked several times.   
  
"Mark my words, I will see you hanging from your toes in detention if you try to steal supplies from my office again," the man continued. "Even your misguided guardian Dumbledore won't be able to save you."   
  
The man was mad. Lost in the past. He had to be. Taking a breath, Emma eased away from the door and slowly started towards the man's desk.   
  
"Tricky, Potter!" The man whipped around, still scanning the room, searching. "You're just the same as your father. Come out from your cloak and face your punishment. Time in the dungeon and fifty points from your House. And you can forget about Quidditch."   
  
Emma reached the desk and picked up the man's quill pen. Dipping it into the ink, she quickly copied a short list that she'd memorized back in the Order's cave and added the words, "Help me."   
  
The man stumbled back to the desk and grabbed up the parchment. "Potter," he whispered again. The glazed look in his tired eyes cleared for a moment, and Emma could almost see him regain his hold on reality. "Yes…I'll help you, Potter. It's the least…" He let out a sad, shaky breath. "The least I can do."   
  
  
  
"You know…" Ron shook his head as he moved into the room. His immaculate black robes brushed against the dusty floor with each step. "I didn't truly believe Malfoy when he claimed to have had an encounter with the very late Harry Potter. But here you are. I suppose I owe him that hundred Galleons now."   
  
Harry wanted to get angry, but all he felt was icy grief. "What happened to you?" he quietly asked.   
  
The answer to his question came from an unexpected source. "Power," Molly told him. Her voice trembled, but she went on. "What is it that the Muggles say about absolute power?"   
  
"It corrupts absolutely," Harry filled in. "Is that it, Ron? Were you corrupted?"   
  
Ron apparently had no intention of answering the question. He locked stares with Harry for a moment almost too brief to even be noted. In the space of that connected second, Harry suddenly realized that there was no hope in trying to talk this Ron back into the Ron he knew. He was gone. He'd been gone for a long time.   
  
"It doesn't matter how you came back, although I'll be sure to ask when the pain of the Cruciatus has you willing to tell me anything I want to know. What's important is that we're together again, Harry, old mate." His grin was the most horrific thing Harry had ever seen. "And this time, I might get to kill you myself."   
  
Molly gasped. "Ronald Weasley…" She couldn't go on; she slumped in Harry's arms as though the effort of living had gotten to be too much.   
  
"You can let go of my mother now," Ron said. "I no longer need her."   
  
"I'm sure you don't need anyone, Ron," Harry replied. "Your friends, your family…"   
  
His lip curled up in disgust. "What I've accomplished in my life, I've done without any help from anyone else," he snapped. "I created my power. I created my wealth. I gave myself these things."   
  
"I doubt Voldemort would agree."   
  
Ron ignored this. He'd always been good at ignoring what he didn't want to think about. "You know…I often thought you a fool for turning down everything he offered you."   
  
Harry's eyes narrowed. "I'm glad I died rather than take any of his offers. He killed my parents. He's taken away everything I've loved in my life."   
  
"Not everything." Ron smirked. "There's still your daughter. And your wife."   
  
Harry held his ground, refusing to let on to the chill he suddenly felt. "You'll never find them."   
  
"I don't have to go looking for them, Harry. They've come here to me."   
  
"Leave them alone. They're innocent. They always have been."   
  
Ron tilted his head to one side. "Maybe your brat is. But Hermione…" He shook his head. "You have no idea."   
  
He didn't want to ask, he wanted to write off the remark as a desperate attempt to throw him off guard…but he found himself asking, "About what?"   
  
"Your ever-so faithful wife hasn't been all that faithful to your memory, mate." He shook his head in mock disappointment. "Although for the life of me I can't imagine why she wanted to go to bed with Remus Lupin. He was an old man when we were kids! Maybe it was the whole werewolf thing. Didn't you used to tell me that she liked it rough? You know…on her hands and knees from…"   
  
He was cut off by Harry's hands wrapping around his throat. Even so, he still managed to get out a strangled chuckle.   
  
"Don't ever talk about my wife again," Harry hissed, slamming him against the wall of the dormitory they'd once shared as friends. "You lying traitor!"   
  
Ron's knee collided with his groin and Harry released him, doubling over in pain. Coughing and laughing at the same time, Ron stood over him, triumphant. "Why tell lies, Harry…when the truth is so much more fun?" He pulled out his wand. "Let's make this quick, shall we? I have better places to be. Crucio!"   
  
The ache in his groin was nothing compared to the excruciating pain that coursed through his entire body. Every nerve ending was on fire. He heard screams. Some belonged to Molly Weasley.   
  
The others, he realized, were his.   
  
  
  
Hermione heard her husband's screams and felt her blood freeze. Someone grabbed her arm; Remus, she realized a second later.   
  
"It's coming from…" he started.   
  
"The tower," she finished. "Harry…" Hermione pulled away from him and ducked out of the safety of the cloak.   
  
"Hermione!" she heard her one-time lover calling after her. "Wait!"   
  
But she couldn't wait. Harry was hurting. Harry could die. She couldn't let it happen. Not again.   
  
Her feet took he straight to Gryffindor Tower without her brain even having to remember the path there. The portrait was already open; she ran into the common room just in time to hear another scream, a much more feminine cry. It was coming from the boy's side. Hermione took the stairs two at a time, her breast rising and falling, not from the effort, but from sheer fear.   
  
Entering the room was like entering the hell of her worst nightmares. Her beloved Harry lay on the floor, curled up in agony. Ron stood over him, laughing. And Molly Weasley was dumbstruck, unable to do anything but sob.   
  
Her first instinct was to stop him from attacking Harry. With no other plan in her mind, Hermione ran for Ron, attacking him from behind with her fists, her nails, anything to inflict enough pain to distract him and allow Harry to regain the upper hand.   
  
Ron fought the invisible attack almost too well. His arms flailed for a moment before he thought to reach behind him. She felt his fingers twist into her hair, pulling hard enough to make her scalp bleed. Perhaps it was the pain, or the lowering of her own defenses in such close proximity to the epicenter of evil, but when Ron turned around, she knew right away that he could see her.   
  
"There you are, Hermione." He smiled. "Good to see you."   
  
With that, he flung her across the room. She felt her head connect with the wall. She felt herself crumple onto the floor. She felt the warmth of her own blood pooling under her cheek. But after that, she felt nothing.   
  
  
  
To Be Continued 


	11. When can I see you again?

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me, or else I would be very, very rich.  
  
Author's Notes: The new movie is freaking awesome. Go see it if you haven't already. Then come back and enjoy this chapter;)  
  
  
  
Until Such A Time  
  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
  
  
Emma raced down the corridor, hugging her arms around the precious bundle she carried. This threw her off balance a bit, but she couldn't take any chances. The item was too important. It was the only way to correct her mistakes.   
  
But as much as she needed it, she also hated it. The thing she'd watched the strange man in the dungeon concoct…it was what would take her father away from her for a second time. And Emma wasn't quite sure she was ready to let him go.   
  
A strangled scream pierced her straight through the heart and she came to such a sudden stop that she nearly dropped her cargo. It wasn't male or female; it was something other than human. Something so tortured and twisted that she could actually feel her blood freezing over.   
  
"Oh god," she whispered, looking around. What was lurking up ahead? Or behind her? Or somewhere else entirely? She had no idea where she was within the labyrinth of a castle.   
  
Her best bet was to keep going forward, and she did this with the determination and courage that ran heavily in her veins. She didn't stop running until she reached another set of stairs. But unlike the ones that had taken her down into the dungeon, these steps led up…and over…and down…and up again. Emma frowned as she took them all two at a time. The maze of staircases confused her like nothing ever had before. And just when she was sure she'd gotten used to them, the flight she was ascending lurched to the side without warning.   
  
Emma barely managed to keep from falling back; she clung to the stone railing with one arm for the brief ride and very jerky stop. When it was over, though, she couldn't help but grin.   
  
"That was…fun."   
  
Shaking off the smile, she re-focused her mind on her task. Find her father, send him back to his time, and hope the whole world changed for the better. Simple. Yeah, right.   
  
When she reached the top of the stairs, Emma turned around on the landing, looking for the connecting flight. There was none, just a door in front of her that sat ajar an inch or two, as if it was waiting for her to step through. Taking a breath, she pulled it open enough for her to slip through.   
  
Another corridor. She wanted to stomp her foot in frustration, until she spotted something strange a few yards down the hall. A large portrait frame, large enough for a tall man to step through with room to spare, opened up into the corridor, blocking half of it. The canvas was torn, so there was no way to see what it had once been.   
  
There was something ominous in the air. Emma instinctively recoiled, wanting to turn the other way and run, but it suddenly occurred to her that running was something her father had never done. If she really was fashioned in the Potter mold, she'd better start acting like it. It took another fortifying breath before her feet started moving.   
  
Another strangled cry cut through the silence; she was surprised that none of the castle's actual residents seemed to notice. Perhaps they didn't know about this particular corridor; it did seem a bit run-down. Her walk turned into a jog as she came around the portrait frame and into an open room that had definitely seen better days.   
  
Dust took the shine off of everything, but couldn't hide the triumphant colors of the Gryffindor House. Her parent's House…what might have been her House, too. This had to be the common room her mother had spoken of on the rare occasions when she let herself remember Hogwarts. Emma licked her lips, almost overcome with excitement. Her parents had fallen in love within these very walls.   
  
Her head snapped around as she picked up on voices from somewhere close by. There were two sets of stairs on either side of the room; she took the one closest to her and hoped for the best.   
  
  
  
"Hermione…"   
  
She was the only thing on Harry's mind as he came out of the pain of Ron's curse. He blinked to focus, but discovered that his glasses had been knocked off. After fumbling around on the floor for a minute, he found him and pushed them back onto the bridge of his nose.   
  
And that's when he saw her. Crumpled in a heap against the far wall where his own bed had once stood, she lay discarded, as though she meant nothing. He heard sobbing that could only be coming from Mrs. Weasley…because Hermione wasn't moving.   
  
Not even to breathe.   
  
"Hermione," Harry repeated, stronger this time. He staggered to his feet, grasping his wand in his suddenly sweaty hand.   
  
Ron glanced over his shoulder at him. He was still smiling; it sent a chill down Harry's spine. "She won't answer you, Potter. She's…"   
  
Rather than hear the words out loud, he lunged for Ron again with a cry he didn't even recognize as his own. Balling up his fist around his wand, Harry slammed it into Ron's mouth, sending a spray of blood across the floor. Ron doubled over, spitting blood onto the floor.   
  
Harry wanted to kill him. His first friend in the entire world, and he wanted to see him wither away in pain until there was no more light in his eyes, and he never drew breath again. Harry raised his wand, preparing to utter the curse no wizard should ever have to use against a friend.   
  
"Petrificus totalus." The spell was softly spoken, but effective, none the less. Ron's body froze just as he was rising back up. Unable to stay up, he fell to the floor with a great thud.   
  
Molly Weasley wiped away a tear and lowered her wand. "It won't hold him for long, Harry, but we should have time to get out…" She trailed off; Harry wasn't listening. His entire world had shrunk down to the still body of his wife.   
  
Swallowing a lump in her dry throat, she watched him take a few slow steps towards Hermione before he simply couldn't stand anymore. Harry Potter slipped to his knees, hot tears coursing down his cheeks. A moment passed in which Molly couldn't draw breath. She couldn't even blink. All she could do was watch Harry gather Hermione into his arms with another, even more heart-wrenching cry.   
  
She smelled so sweet, Harry thought, pressing his face into the crook of his wife's neck. There was no pulse there, but she was still warm. His tears soaked her robes as he gripped her tighter. The curse Ron had hit him with was nothing compared to the pain of holding his wife's body, knowing that she would never open her eyes again.   
  
"Oh god…Hermione…" His fingers tangled in her hair as he slumped onto his hip, no longer able to support himself on his knees. In this new position, he could draw her even closer, until she was cradled in his lap. "Is this what it was like for you?" he whispered. "When I died…did you want to die, too?"   
  
The floorboards creaked suddenly and Harry's head shot up. Emma stood in the doorway, a cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms and a blank look of shock on her face. He watched her lower lip begin to tremble.   
  
"She's not…" Emma managed to get out. "She's not gone…right? She's just hurt. She needs…" The tears on her father's cheeks caught the light and all of her hope faded away.   
  
Molly rushed to the girl, prepared to embrace her like the eternal mother that she was, but Emma didn't want comfort. She side-stepped the older woman and moved closer to her parents. Her feet dragged a bit, as if her whole body was hesitating. Finally, she stopped. The faintest whimper escaped her lips. "Mummy…"   
  
As much as he wanted to hold onto Hermione forever, his instincts as a father were overwhelming. Only taking the time to lay his wife down, Harry caught his daughter before she fell to the floor sobbing. She fought him at first, but after a moment, she was too grief-stricken to do anything more than cry against his shoulder.   
  
"No!" Emma screamed, pounding his arm with a weak fist. "She can't leave me alone!! I don't want to be alone!"   
  
His tears mixed with his daughter's as he pressed his forehead to hers. "You won't be alone, Emma. You'll never be alone."   
  
"Yes, I will!" She pushed away from him. "You'll leave and I'll be here in this horrible world without anyone!! You get to go back to her, Dad." Emma spat out the word. "I don't!"   
  
"Emma…"   
  
She cut him off by reaching for the bundle that had rolled onto the floor with her. It had half un-wrapped itself; she finished the job and held up an old-cracked bottle filled with a liquid that glowed.   
  
"This will take you back," she told him, still choking on her tears. "I figured it out, but this old man in the dungeon mixed it together. He thought I was you, but he couldn't see me…" She struggled for a breath. "All you have to do is put it on an object…any object, then touch it. And you'll go back. I can't explain it any better than that, because I don't really get it myself." Emma looked her father straight in the eye. "Use it now."   
  
Harry shook his head, surprising himself. "No."   
  
"You have to," she insisted. "You don't belong here."   
  
"Maybe I do," her father countered.   
  
"You don't understand!" Emma stood up, gesturing frantically with her trembling hands. "The spell I did…I didn't know what kind of effect it would have on you. You know those headaches you've been getting." She paused. "Being here is killing you. You know too much about the future; it's making you…deteriorate. You've got to get back to your time before it's too late and there's not enough of you to send back!"   
  
Harry ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't understand any of this, Emma."   
  
"I know. I'm sorry." Her voice was small and child-like. "All of this is my fault. I brought you here." She looked down at her mother's body. "I killed her."   
  
"Don't even think that, young lady," Harry snapped. They both blinked, Harry for suddenly adopting a parent's discipline, and Emma for how weirdly right it felt being disciplined by her father. He shook his head. "I can't leave you alone. You're my daughter."   
  
"Mum would tell you to go, wouldn't she?"   
  
His shoulders sagged a bit and he closed his eyes for a moment. The headache that had been present all day was building up again; it felt much worse now that he knew what was causing it. "She would. I'd fight her, but she'd end up winning."   
  
Emma hugged her arms around her slender frame. "So will I."   
  
Harry glanced over at Molly Weasley, searching for some alternative answer. The woman had none though; she merely nodded at him. She'd be all right; she'd find Remus and her sons and they'd take her to safety. He looked back at his daughter; her eyes were closed now.   
  
Wiping under his glasses, Harry searched for an object. All he could find was the chair Molly had been tied to. Taking Emma's potion, he poured a good amount of it over the wooden seat. He looked back at Hermione's body. "See you soon," he whispered. His gaze moved over to Emma. Her eyes were still tightly shut, trying to block out what was about to happen.   
  
"Emma," he called to her. "You don't have to look at me, but I want you to know something." He smiled. "Even if this doesn't work, and nothing changes, don't apologize for what you tried to do. You gave me a chance to meet you…to see you all grown up. For me, that makes all of this worthwhile."   
  
Harry's fingers had almost reached the chair's seat when he felt two arms wrap around his waist. The sudden jolt forced the contact and the same, dizzy feeling he'd felt before being whisked away into the future enveloped him again. "Emma?"   
  
His daughter held on tight. "Sorry, Dad. I'm coming with you."   
  
  
  
  
  
They reappeared exactly where they had vanished, namely in the middle of the boy's dormitory of Gryffindor Tower. Being the middle of the day, there were no students around for their sudden entrance. Just three very shocked house elves who were making up the beds. Harry nodded to them. "Good job. Carry on."   
  
Grabbing Emma's hand, he yanked her out of the room and into the winding stone staircase. "Why did you do that?"   
  
Her father's eyes sparked with anger. "I…I just…I don't know. I didn't want to lose you."   
  
Harry couldn't stay angry; his expression fell. "Emma, you've put yourself into the same life-threatening situation that you said I was in, don't you realize?"   
  
"I know." She shook her head. "I don't care. My life is over back there; I have nothing left."   
  
"You have life back there! You'll grow up, you might get married and have children of your own. What will you have here?"   
  
Emma lifted her chin just a bit. "I'll have people to share it all with."   
  
Harry drew in a long, calming breath. "This is not the place to figure this out. I'd like to get out of the castle and Apparate home without being seen."   
  
"I'll be quiet as a mouse," she promised. "I doubt that I'm under the Fidelus here, but no one here wants to kill me so it doesn't really matter, does it?"   
  
"No. No one here wants to kill you." But back in her time, if she walked around without a charm to hide her, she would be walking into her death. Why was he trying to send his daughter back there? Harry gestured down the stairs. "I know some secret passages where neither of us will be seen. Come on."   
  
The common room was also blessedly empty. A fire sparked in the hearth. The furniture looked as comfortable as ever and the banners trailed down from the ceilings in their usual, magnificent manner. This was what Griffyndor Tower should always look like. And if he had any say in the matter, this time around, it would never change.   
  
  
  
Twenty minutes later, they stood on the Quidditch pitch. Harry took a moment to savor the sight of the perfectly trimmed green grass before he looked at his daughter. "We'll be going straight home."   
  
Emma tilted her head back, soaking in the sun that never seemed to shine in her own world. "Home." She smiled broadly. "Let's go home."   
  
The Apparation was quick and smooth and they reappeared in front of the cottage. Harry wasted no time going in; Emma had to rush to keep up with him.   
  
"Hermione!" he called out. "Hermione…I'm here!"   
  
A very faint, "Harry," drifted down the hall from the living room. Frowning, Harry took off again, his daughter on his heels. He rounded the corner and stopped short, sending Emma crashing into his back.   
  
"Hermione."   
  
In the middle of the strongest contraction yet, his wife glanced up at him. Sweat beaded her brow. "Love…your timing, as always, is just perfect."   
  
  
  
To Be Continued 


	12. And baby makes four?

Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.  
  
Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay. Surgery was had, time passed, it's here now;) Enjoy, and thanks so much for all your kind reviews...they mean so much.  
  
??????  
  
Until Such A Time  
  
by Kristen Elizabeth  
  
??????  
  
"Here, love. Bite down on this." Harry ran a piece of ice Emma had retrieved from the freezer across his wife's lips. "You need to keep hydrated, too."  
  
"You bite the ice," Hermione snapped. "I'm trying to keep your spawn from splitting me open."  
  
He tried to smile. "So, when the baby's being a pain, it's my spawn?"  
  
The contraction faded away a moment later and Hermione let out a long sigh of relief. "Oh god, Harry. I thought that one was never going to pass."  
  
"But it did," he soothed. "And soon it'll all be over and we'll have our baby." Harry tried, but he couldn't keep himself from sneaking a look at Emma just then. She was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, staring at the laboring woman with a complete look of shock.  
  
"And you'll be here for it." Tears wet her cheeks. "I was so worried, Harry. I didn't know what happened to you. I thought...all sorts of horrible things."  
  
"Shh." He smoothed her hair back from her forehead. "I'll explain everything that I can as soon as possible. Right now, we need to call for someone. A medi-wizard...a Muggle ambulance...we can't do this without help."  
  
But Hermione wasn't entirely listening to him. Her attention had also suddenly turned to the strange girl watching her. "Harry, darling...who is that?"  
  
"Um..." Harry cleared his throat. "That's...Emma."  
  
His wife struggled to sit up a bit more. "Let me be more specific. How do you know her and why is she here?"  
  
As Harry searched for an answer, Emma blinked and stepped forward. "It's complicated, Mu...um...Mrs. Potter. Basically...I come from the place where your husband's been during...the time he was gone." She smiled tightly. "Mr. Potter, can we talk? In the kitchen?"  
  
Harry looked back at Hermione. "Will you be all right for a moment?"  
  
"I'll survive."  
  
He stood up from his kneeling position next to the couch. "I'll be right back. If you need anything, call out." Harry picked up his wife's hand and brought it up to his lips. "I love you, Hermione."  
  
"I love you, too, Harry," she whispered.  
  
In the kitchen, Emma was working on a massive panic attack. "What have I done?" she repeated several times as she paced back and forth. "I'm here...I should be there. But I don't want to be there. She's dead there. But here, she doesn't know me...doesn't want me around." She glanced up at her father. "And I'm about to witness my own birth!!"  
  
"Emma, calm down," Harry ordered. "Look, we'll get everything straightened out as soon as the baby...er...you, I guess...as soon as you're born. All right?"  
  
Wiping away hot tears, Emma sniffed. "Yeah." Her lower lip trembled suddenly. "She's so young...and beautiful. I never knew what she went through for me."  
  
"And she did it without me," Harry said. "Emma, do you realize that we've already altered the order of the future? I'm here...I'm going to be here when you're born. In your past, I wasn't."  
  
"But..." She hesitated. "You'll still have to face Voldemort."  
  
"And Ron." Harry blinked. "That's it. I'll send for Ron."  
  
Emma stared at her father. "You're joking. Right?" In response, Harry reached for the old-fashioned Muggle phone sitting on the far end of the counter. "Right?!?"  
  
Harry dialed quickly. He'd bought the two phones early on in Hermione's pregnancy in case of emergency, and given one to Ron, as well as picking up the phone bill and teaching Ron that he didn't need to shout to be heard over it, so they could be in constant contact.  
  
"I can't believe you. Ron is...evil! He killed my mother!! You can't bring him here; who knows what he'll do!" Emma protested.  
  
While the phone rang, Harry leveled his daughter with a look. "In this world, he hasn't gone completely over yet. If there's even the slightest chance that I can keep him from doing so, you had better believe I will damn well try." He paused. "He's my best friend. He's meant to be your godfather."  
  
Emma blinked. Clearly this was a new revelation for her, but Harry had little time to think on that.  
  
"Oh, I see you've decided to come back, Harry" Ron asked immediately upon picking up the phone.  
  
"Ron." The bored tone in which his friend addressed him made Harry's throat close up. When he could speak, he continued, "It's happening. Hermione's in labor."  
  
Whatever was worming its way into his friend's heart wasn't yet powerful enough to stop him from exclaiming with a fair amount of joyous surprise, "Bloody hell!"  
  
"We're at the cottage, but I'm not sure whether to call for an ambulance yet," Harry went on.  
  
"An ambu-what?"  
  
Harry smiled. "Never mind. Will you come? Help us?"  
  
He could hear Ron sigh. "I can't imagine what I'd do if I were there. I don't care for blood...or children, for that matter. I'd probably just get on Hermione's nerves."  
  
"We want you here. You're our friend. The baby's godfather."  
  
"Yeah, about that. I think you'd better look for someone else, mate."  
  
Swallowing a rising lump in his throat, Harry shook his head. "You don't mean that."  
  
"Why would I say it then?"  
  
Harry glanced at Emma. Her arms were folded across her chest as tightly as possible; she refused to meet his eyes. "I don't know, Ron. There must be a reason. And whatever it is...we can work through..." A sudden scream from the living room cut him off. Harry nearly dropped the phone. "Hermione!"  
  
Emma took a breath. "I'll go," she said, without thinking. "You can keep talking to my bastard godfather." Without giving Harry time to reply, she ran to her mother's side.  
  
Hermione was caught up in a fresh contraction, even more painful than the last. Gritting her teeth, she tucked her chin against her chest and fought against it, but it was too much. She fell back against the pillows Harry had carefully stacked behind her, unable to keep a moan from escaping her lips.  
  
"Mrs. Potter." Emma approached her. "Is there anything I can do for you?"  
  
"Grab a pair of tongs from the kitchen and pull this child out of me!"  
  
"It's really that painful?"  
  
Hermione's eyes closed. "No, it's wonderful. The miracle of life, right?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm.  
  
Cautiously, Emma kneeled down a few feet away from the couch. "I could do a spell...to make it stop hurting."  
  
"Sweet offer, but it won't work. This is the price of motherhood." Hermione's fingers clutched the couch cushion until her knuckles turned snow white. "Besides...I want to be able to hold this experience over Harry's head the next time he smashes his finger with a hammer or some such thing and whines for three days."  
  
Emma suppressed a giggle. "He does that?"  
  
Her mother's face softened. "No, not really. In truth...he's wonderful." Tears joined the perspiration on her face. "I don't know what I'd do without him."  
  
"I think..." The corners of her lips turned up. "I think you'd do better than you think you would."  
  
Hermione opened her eyes, and for the first time since she and Harry had arrived, she took a good look at the strange girl. "Why do I feel like you know what you're talking about...when we've never met?" She frowned. "Who are you?"  
  
"A friend," Emma replied after a moment. "I just want to help. Um...with the general situation of things. Not with the actual, you know, birth. Because...well, trust me...it'd be weird."  
  
"We need to call Molly Weasley," Hermione said, abruptly. "She gave birth six times."  
  
"Seven. If you count each twin." Harry re-entered the living room, his expression grim. "And you're right; we should call her."  
  
Emma's eyes narrowed. "Ron's not coming?"  
  
"No, he's coming," Harry said. "He just doesn't realize it yet."  
  
"Harry?"  
  
"I'm going to get him and bring him here by whatever means necessary." Harry walked to the couch and bent down to kiss his wife. "I'll only be gone for a little while."  
  
Hermione bit her lip. "Please don't go, Harry."  
  
"I have to." He stroked one finger down her cheek. "For reasons I can't get into right now...Ron has to be here."  
  
She grasped his hand with hers. "You'd better be glad I trust you with my life, Harry Potter." Lightly squeezing, she released him. "Go, love. I'll be fine."  
  
Harry swallowed. "Emma will be here with you. I'll be back straight away, I promise." Dropping his head, he gave her a soft kiss.  
  
Emma wanted to be a normal child and look away, faking sickness at the thought of her parents being intimate, but she found she couldn't. It was too beautiful. They were so deeply in love...it was easy for her to see now how her mother's bloom had faded without her soul's partner.  
  
Finally, Harry stood up. "Emma...take care of her."  
  
Their daughter smiled with just a tinge of mischief. "Like she was my own mother."  
  
?????  
  
Harry didn't bother Apparating on the street; he wasn't that patient. Instead, he chose to appear directly inside Ron's London flat. Unfortunately, he hadn't anticipated what sort of scene he might stumble into. When his senses cleared, Harry found himself face to face with his best friend...as he walked out of the bathroom, buck naked.  
  
"Bloody hell!" they both shouted at the same time. Harry quickly turned around and Ron dove for his robe.  
  
"Harry, what the blazes do you think you're doing?"  
  
When he was sure that Ron was covered, Harry turned back around. "I'm sorry." He paused. "No, I'm not. It's your own fault. If you'd come to help us out of the goodness of your heart, I wouldn't have had to witness your little peep show."  
  
"I was about to take a shower. And hey...I'm in my own bloody flat, I am!!"  
  
Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Let me remind you once again that Hermione, my wife, our best friend since we were eleven years old, is currently giving birth."  
  
"Yeah, I got it the first time." Ron crossed his arms as he sat down on his unmade bed. "I still don't see what it has to do with me."  
  
This wasn't the Ron he thought he knew, but neither was it the Ron he'd encountered in the horrible future. He was somewhere in the middle and still, Harry hoped, salvageable. If witnessing Emma's birth didn't clear up his head...Harry had no idea what would.  
  
"We want you there. We want you to be a part of this." He looked Ron straight in the eye. "We're a team, aren't we?"  
  
"Getting her pregnant wasn't a team effort, so neither should getting her...um...un-pregnant." Ron stood up. "Since when do you care all that much about the three of us doing things together?"  
  
Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"  
  
"Have you been paying attention the past couple of years, mate?" His friend chuckled bitterly. "We haven't been team; the two of you have been a couple. What's that saying? Three's company?"  
  
"Two's company, three's a crowd," Harry corrected him. Realization began to sink in. Could Ron's complete transformation from friend to enemy in the future...be his fault? "Ron, I know things changed when Hermione and I got married, but do you really think we've been leaving you out in the cold?"  
  
When he shrugged in reply, he was entirely Ron, as he had been during their years together at Hogwarts.  
  
"You have to believe that if we have been, even in the slightest degree, we never meant to," Harry continued.  
  
"Oh yeah. No, I get it. You two were just caught up in your great, epic love. No harm done, Harry. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to put some clothes before..."  
  
Harry cut him off. "But harm was done! I mean it will be!" Ron stared at him, confused. "Just...trust me. We've got to work this rift out, Ron, and get back to what our friendship's really all about. What it's always been about."  
  
"And what's that?" He cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone. "Presenting the Great Harry Potter!" His voice lowered considerably. "...and with him, as always, is Ron."  
  
Frustration clouded Harry's face. "You know, I thought we worked out these issues when we were teenagers."  
  
"Issues? I haven't got any bloody issues!"  
  
"Just a massive inferiority complex."  
  
Ron's cheeks grew red. "I'm not inferior to anyone."  
  
"You're right. Least of all to me."  
  
Ron's anger dropped in surprise of Harry's simple words. "Then why do I always feel that way when I'm around you, mate? And even more so when I see you with Hermione?"  
  
"I guess..." Harry blew out a breath. "Now that we're married, she and I are connected on some other level."  
  
"Some level I'm not meant to be on," Ron interjected.  
  
"It doesn't make you inferior."  
  
His friend scratched the back of his head. "No. It makes me jealous."  
  
"Ron, I..."  
  
"The three of us used to be on the same level. Friends...getting into the same scrapes and sharing everything." He shrugged again. "We don't anymore. We can't. So, guess who's left out?"  
  
"You should have told us how you were feeling a long time ago."  
  
Ron chuckled. "When? While you were on your honeymoon? Or maybe when you were settling into your new place? Perhaps I should have brought it all up when you found out Hermione was pregnant. That would have been great timing on my part."  
  
There was a long pause before Harry replied. "Whatever's going on our in lives, if we're ever too distracted to listen to our best friend, then we're completely in the wrong."  
  
Unable to come up with an answer, Ron sniffed and looked away. "Well, yeah."  
  
"Please come back with me? Be a part of this with us?"  
  
After another long moment, Ron looked back at him. "I'd like to, mate. But Serafina's coming over and..."  
  
It wasn't the right time to tell him the truth about his new girlfriend, the woman who would help lead him down the path to darkness. Harry knew that if he started in on her, the precarious truce with Ron would be destroyed.  
  
"Leave her note. Buy her flowers later," he advised. "I'm sure she'll understand. And if she doesn't..." He let the thought trail off, unfinished.  
  
Ron hesitated. "All right. Just let me get cleaned up and dressed, all right? Hermione doesn't need to see all my bits and pieces."  
  
"No, she's already in enough pain."  
  
A wide grin spread across Ron's face. "Bugger off, you."  
  
"Hurry up." Harry started for the door to give Ron his requested privacy. "I don't know how much time we've got."  
  
?????  
  
Silence greeted Harry and Ron when they arrived back at the cottage. Worry instantly struck Harry's heart. Had something gone wrong?  
  
"Hermione?" he called out. "Where are you?"  
  
Ron shrugged out of his coat and hung it up. "She might be up and walking about a bit. Mum always said that helped her."  
  
"I'm not sure she could get up in this state," Harry told him.  
  
"I think Hermione can do just anything she puts her mind..." He was cut off when Emma suddenly appeared in the hall. "Who're you?"  
  
Harry blinked. "Emma? What is it? What's going on? Where's Hermione?"  
  
"In the living room," Emma whispered. Her eyes were open, but she looked as though she saw nothing. "Go on in; she wants to see you."  
  
Harry and Ron exchanged a look before Harry gently sidestepped his daughter and ran to find his wife, Ron right on his heels.  
  
"Hermione!" He burst into the living room. "Are you..." He stopped.  
  
"Shh," his wife hushed him. "She's asleep."  
  
Instead of in the middle of labor as he had left her, Hermione was propped upright on the couch, her arms forming a cradle against her chest. And in that cradle lay a baby. Their baby.  
  
Ron summed it up best with, "Bloody hell! You went and had the kid!"  
  
"Believe me, Ronald," Hermione replied, rather frostily. "I tried to hold it in, but she's got her father's stubborn streak."  
  
Harry hadn't moved, hadn't even really breathed during their whole exchange. Finally, he spoke. "She's so beautiful."  
  
Hermione's pursed lips relaxed into a joyful smile. "I wanted you to be here, love. She had other ideas. Come here."  
  
He moved forward without thinking and kneeled on the ground next to the couch. "You did this...all by yourself."  
  
"Not all by myself. I couldn't have done it without Emma here to help." Hermione blinked back tears. "Do you want to hold your daughter, Harry?"  
  
Harry nodded and before he quite knew what was happening, his wife had placed the tiny little girl into his arms. His hand cradled her soft head; she squirmed within the soft pastel blankets. "Hi there," he whispered to her. "I'm your dad." The baby woke just then, staring up at him with cloudy blue eyes. They must change later, he thought. Emma's eyes were hazel. "I'm your dad...and I'm never leaving you. I swear it."  
  
Hermione reached out and ran a hand through Harry's tangled locks, a puzzled frown on her face. "What's wrong, love?"  
  
"Nothing." He shook his head. "Nothing can possible be wrong right now." Harry looked at her and on impulse, leaned forward to kiss her. "I love you so much. Thank you."  
  
A creak in the floorboards broke the moment. They both turned to see Emma. Caught watching the scene, she paled, turned and fled towards the kitchen. Harry cursed to himself. "I'll be right back," he told Hermione, passing the baby back to her.  
  
As he left the room, he heard Hermione ask Ron if he wanted to hold the baby, but he didn't hear his friend's answer. Harry entered the kitchen to find Emma sitting at the breakfast table. She was slumped down in the chair, looking away from him.  
  
"Emma," he said. "I'm so proud of you."  
  
She looked back at him and he noticed the tears coursing down her cheeks. "Why? Because I helped my mother give birth to me?" She lifted her shoulders. "What good daughter wouldn't?"  
  
"I can't even imagine how this must be for you." Harry took a seat across from her. "Strange, probably."  
  
Emma shook her head. "Don't try. You can't imagine; leave it at that." There was an awkward pause before she brushed away her tears and looked at her father. "What now? You got Ron here." She couldn't hide the disgust in her voice. "It's a start, right?"  
  
Harry leaned back with a tired sigh. "I still wasn't here though. I still missed your birth."  
  
"What do you think that means?"  
  
"I don't know for sure. But I have a feeling it might change everything. Only now, we won't know what to expect." He stared up at the ceiling. "Things could get a whole lot worse before they get better."  
  
Ron entered the kitchen, and Harry could literally feel Emma recoil at the man's presence. When she noticed that Ron was carrying the baby she'd just helped birth, she looked away. "She wants to see you, Harry," Ron told his friend. "Hermione...she says it's damn important."  
  
Harry stood up. "I'm coming." He glanced at Emma. "Are you going to be all right?"  
  
"Yeah," she replied curtly. "Don't worry about me."  
  
Harry entered the living room to find Hermione waiting for him. "What is it, love? Ron said it was important."  
  
"It is." She held out her hand to him and he took it in his as he sat on the edge of the couch. "Our daughter has no name." Hermione squeezed his fingers. "She has to have a name, Harry. She can't just go nameless!"  
  
He had to laugh. "Calm down. It's all right. She won't be known as the nameless Potter kid, I promise."  
  
Hermione relaxed a bit. "I have an idea, but I need your approval on it." He nodded, indicating for her to go on. "I was thinking...because she was so much help...maybe we could name the baby Emmaline? Emma for short. What do you think?"  
  
Harry swallowed. "I think that'd be just perfect."  
  
?????  
  
To Be Continued 


End file.
